Culture Shock
by Brelic
Summary: AU: In a universe where Raditz took a slightly smarter approach to his battle against Goku and Piccolo, how will the survival of one fighter change this timeline down the road. Will have all or most canon characters, plus some from the movies, in addition to a few OCs
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own Dragon Ball Z, I just like writing about it.**

**This is the first fan fiction that I've worked on completely by myself, I'm also working with gamerfreak102 on _Vegeta the Academic_, which I highly recommend. Reviews are appreciated.**

**I Hope you enjoy it.**

**Chapter 1:**

Somewhere deep in the northern wilderness a large man and a small child, both with tails stood near a large crater. The child stubbornly refused to stop crying and the man in turn was fighting off an anger induced migraine. 'Won't this brat ever shut up, he's been crying since I kicked his weakling father.' "Boy for the last time I'm gunna tell you, you have Saiyan blood flowing through your veins have some pride and be silent!" but the child continued his wailing "Take me back, I want my daddy!" before breaking into sobs again.

He was done, he had had enough of the child's nonstop crying, grabbing the boy by his shirt, he floated down the crater and threw the still crying child into his ship and locked the door. "Finally I get some peace and quiet' he mumbled to himself no sooner had he said this then did his scouter begin to beep. "a power level of 700, on this mud ball, no that isn't possible, Kakarot only had a power level of 330." he looked around for the source of the incredible reading before he noticed the scouter was pointing at his ship, or more specifically the boy sitting in his ship. 'The damn thing must be malfunctioning again that kid only had a power level of 3 a minute ago. 'Curse Frieza always giving us these broken, old pieces of junk."

He started to walk towards a nearby forest to find something to eat when his scouter sounded again 'a power level of 650, what small animal is this piece of junk picking up now.' he thought to himself searching for some small woodland animal that the scouter was mistaking for some high power level. Within a second it updated again reading two smaller power levels instead of one large one. 'let's see ones 320 and ones 330, interesting those match the Green man and Kakarot's power levels, but it's impossible, they don't know where I'm at, this piece of junk must be...' this thought trailed off as his eyes began to resolve 2 specks moving towards them. "No this isn't possible, that means…" he thought as his head whipped back to his ship. "If this thing isn't broken then that kid actually has a power level of over 700" his eyes were still locked on his pod when he heard the sound of two sets of shoes land behind him.

'I'll deal with the brat's mystery power level later; first I guess I'll have some fun with my brother first.' a sadistic smirk crossing his face as he turned to face the lesser beings that dared to challenge him. "Ah Kakarot your more resourceful than I gave you credit for, or more foolish since I don't see a pile of bodies here with you I'll have to assume the later."

"I said it once and I'll say it again, I'll never join a monster like you." Goku responded his eyes never leaving those of his son's kidnapper.

Raditz's smirk became a full grin. " Oh so you're here to try and stop me, and you brought the green man with you for back up ahahaha, the being that could barely singe my leg hairs, this is too much." he continued to laugh.

Piccolo just growled underneath his breath as the insults began to get to him. Goku stayed focused though "Raditz where is my son" he demanded his supposed older brother. This only caused Raditz to laugh harder, "Oh you want to say goodbye before I kill you, well go ahead it'll be your only chance." he cracked up again.

Goku began to undress, which got Raditz's attention for a moment 'what is he doing' then he noticed the green man was doing the same thing.

"I didn't know you wore weighted training clothes too Piccolo" Goku said to his arch rival.

"You didn't think you were the only one did you." Piccolo said a hint of humor in his voice.

Raditz's scouter beeped once more alerting him to the fact both of their power levels had shot up, "408, & 416, if you think such a meager increase in power will be enough to top me you are both bigger idiots than I thought" he roared with laughter again.

After a few more second Raditz finally calmed down, "Well if you're not going to say goodbye I guess we'd better get started then, I've got a busy rest of the day you know cleaning up your failures Kakarot"

Suddenly Raditz was a blur, Goku and Piccolo's eye's couldn't even follow his movement, the next thing they knew a sharp stab of pain hit both of them square in the back and they were flying forward.

The shocked looks on their faces said it all, neither could move for a second, their minds racing trying to find a way to fight a being so fast that they could barely even track them. Finally failing to come up with a good strategy they both came to the same conclusion, charge him. They launched themselves at the insanely strong warrior attacking with everything they had, but they couldn't even manage to land a single blow, Raditz was just too fast. Suddenly their target launched himself into the air; they both followed hoping they would be able to gain an advantage in the air, which was exactly what the veteran warrior wanted. Before either Goku or Piccolo had any time to change course to powerful Ki attacks shot out of the man's arms Goku barely made it out of the way, Piccolo wasn't quite fast enough and ended up losing one of his arms.

This cracked Raditz up once more and he began to taunt his victims, as he always did it gave him such a rush knowing he was so powerful his adversaries were completely at his mercy, "I seem to have lost my arm, have you seen it, you can't miss it because it green" he yelled before laughing hysterically once more.

Piccolo used the time his opponent had given him by cracking himself up, by trying to form a more coherent strategy with his rival. "I have a technique that might be able to beat him. I was actually planning on using it against you, next time we fought, but it seems like I'm gunna have to show it to you early." he said a confident smirk on his face.

Goku felt a small amount of hope return to him but was suspicious why his rival didn't use it at the beginning of the battle. "What's the catch?"

Piccolo couldn't help but smile his rival could be an idiot most of the time but when it came to fighting it seemed like he was a genius. "Well it does take 5 minute to charge, so I would need you to hold him off for at least that long, and seeing how he's managed to crush us both in less than a minute." Piccolo left the rest unsaid.

Goku just smiled"I think i can handle it; well here I go" he said before charging the man who had done a pretty good job beating them both to a pulp in just a couple of blows.

Raditz just laughed at his brother's foolish attacks, Kakarot could never hope of hitting a warrior as strong as himself, but he was enjoying himself so he let his brother struggle for nearly three minutes, rarely counter attacking he enjoyed being able to say he was easily beating another Saiyan, even if that other Saiyan was just his weakling, traitor brother. after a while though he decided he'd better knock some sense into Goku. With a swift blow to his younger brother's head he sent him flying into the air.

But Goku wouldn't be dissuaded from his task of distracting his brother so easily "KA-ME" he yelled as Raditz's scouter began to beep wildly registering the rapid rise in Goku's power level, "HA-ME" he continued as Raditz noticed the second power level being shown by his scouter was also rising, 'So they know how to raise their power levels by concentrating their energy; Kakarot's over 600... and the green man's over a thousand, this just got tricky' he thought to himself as he began to run away from Kakarot as fast as he could so he had more time to react. "HAAAAA!" his brother yelled as a thick beam of blue energy rushed towards him. At first Raditz thought his brother had missed entirely but soon the blast began to curve after him as he ran.

Finally after a prolonged race, lasting nearly a full 5 seconds, Raditz realized running would be pointless so he turned around and used his own energy to negate his brother attack, which was not an easy task even for him. By the time he was done his hand had been scorched and he even felt just a little tired just for a moment, before his energy began to flow through himself once again at nearly its normal level. The same couldn't be said for Goku he felt nearly drained, he had put nearly everything he had into that last attack, his muscles felt like they were on fire and he couldn't catch his breath. Raditz stared up at his brother a triumphant grin plastered on his face. "Don't you see how pointless your struggles are brother? You and everything else on this rock are going to die today, Because unlike you I'm a first class warrior." He shouted before breaking into laughter once more.

That was when Piccolo decided to act, letting out a powerful yell "Special Beam Cannon!" the blast shot out, Raditz's scouter alerted him just in the nick of time, '1400, I can't block that' the thought flashed through his mind for just a second before he lurched to the left. Raditz barely had had enough time to react, a searing pain shot through his shoulder as the blast grazed him, but the fact he had survived at all still had him in an amused mood, "Looks like you need to work on your aim green man if it had been better you might have actually done some damage." Raditz said entirely aware of how close to death he had actually come, his burnt shoulder, and shattered shoulder guard were testament to that.

Piccolo was devastate he had put everything he had into that blast, It would take him even longer to charge a second attack and with the element of surprise gone he knew he wasn't going to be given a second chance, he had failed his own destiny.

"Well it's been fun but I think it's time I get to killing you." Raditz said to him causing a wave of despair to fall over Piccolo. Suddenly though the seemingly unstoppable warrior dropped to his knees gasping in pain, his power abandoning him at his moment of triumph.

Piccolo was stunned unsure what had happened until he noticed his arch rival standing behind his supposed brother his tail locked firmly in his hands. "Ahh so you had a backup plan after all, hold him for just a few minutes and I should be able to try one more shot." Piccolo said a huge grin crossing his face before he began to concentrate once more.

Raditz suddenly had real fear began to build up in his stomach, 'it can't end like this. I've survived too many battles and too many beatings, to die here to my weakling brother and the green man.' He had to do something even if that something meant swallowing his pride and begging for his life. "Kakarot please let me go I'll leave and never come back I swear." He knew he just needed to put a small amount of doubt in his brother's mind just long enough for the grip to loosen so he could finish them.

Piccolo caught onto the rouse immediately "Goku don't listen to him he's lying, he'll kill us all"

"No brother you must believe me, I made it all up to try to make you join us, I don't have it in me to kill my own flesh and blood." he needed Kakarot to believe him just for a second, and his brother's foolishness didn't fail him. The green man yelled "No Goku don't" but it was too late the grip began to loosen and Raditz's strength began to come back. He launched himself away from his brother quickly so he couldn't change his mind.

Raditz knew it was time no more fooling around, he came too close to death. Not wasting another second he quickly charged and fired a powerful blast into the green man's stomach blasting a fist sized hole right through him.

Goku was stunned he tried to make a move to stop Raditz but he was a fraction of a second too late, Raditz's other hand had already been charging a second powerful blast "Double Sunday" he yelled before firing into his brothers chest, launching his dying body back nearly a dozen meters.

"You were a fool Kakarot, not worthy to have Saiyan blood flowing through your veins" he said with a sneer before turning to the gravely injured green man who was still trying to stand. "And you I won't finish you off today, I'll be back in a year to finish clearing this planet, gather whatever pitiful defensive forces this planet might have, I want you all at your best for when I and my associates return, we'll be looking for a good time." He began to laugh as he walked back towards his ship.

As soon as he opened the door of his ship the boy inside launch himself at him, screaming "Leave my daddy alone!" his scouter going off just a second too late. Just as the child's head crashed into his gut as the he saw what his scouter read "a power level of 1500, how is this possible" he gasped out as the air left his lungs, two of his ribs scattered, along with his armor. He stumbled backwards a few steps before dropping down on a knee, the child looked around slightly dazed before Raditz hand lashed out and knocked the small boy unconscious. 'the brat he was hiding his power, I should kill him for attacking me, but if he's this strong as a child, he might be as strong as Prince Vegeta if he gets some good assignments and if he can stay alive he just might be able to help us in the fight against Frieza.' growling Raditz grabbed the child by the back of his shirt before getting into his pod setting the destination and turning the sleeping gas on and drifting into a drug induced slumber so he wouldn't have to deal with the pain of his now broken ribs for the next few months.

(Back on Earth around 3 minutes later)

In the distance yellow airship could be seen approaching the battle field where the two greatest fighters in the history of the earth were just so easily defeated.

"Oh no, is that Goku down there!" Bulma screamed noticing a body that appeared to be her friend laid prone on his back, a few dozen feet away piccolo sat against a rock, the hole in his stomach mostly healed by his special regenerative abilities.

"This doesn't look good guys; I don't see that Raditz guy anywhere." Krillin said his voice tense and nervous as his eyes scanned the field below.

"We might as well land and inspect the area from the ground; Goku might need some medical help." Master Roshi said his voice also tense.

About a minute later they had landed and made it to Goku's side, unfortunately for them Earth's greatest hero was already on the brink of death. He could barely get out what he needed to say, death was on the verge of overtaking him, he could tell it was the second battle he was going to lose that day. "We couldn't stop him this time" he began to cough up blood apparently not for the first time since he was laying there evident by the pool of it next to his head. Goku suddenly grabbed the bottom of Krillin's shirt "He took Gohan, he said… he said….." but before he could finish alerting his friends to the coming danger, the earth's greatest hero passed on, his grasp slipping off of his best friends shirt and the light leaving his eyes.

"GOKU! NO!" Bulma cried before burying her head into Master Roshi's shoulder. Krillin's eyes began to well up too at the sight of his friend's lifeless, mangled body.

Although he was disturbed by the sight Master Roshi was better able to keep calm in this situation and tried to comfort the others, "Don't give up hope yet, we can still wish him back with the dragon ball everybody"

Both Krillin and Bulma perked up seemingly just remembering the mystic orbs that had been such a large part of their lives. Suddenly their hope was replaced with confusion as Goku's body began to fade from view, "Wait what's happening" Bulma cried out.

A harsh unexpected voice, which sent a chill down each of their backs, answered her question "I suspect that was Kami's doing, the Earth is in grave danger he'll probably be receiving some sort of special training in other world to prepare, or something along those lines, but believe me the old man's got a plan." Piccolo said not bothering to hide the disdain he held for his other half from his voice.

Everyone turned to the spawn of the Demon King expecting to get further explanation out of him but he didn't feel like sharing any more than that. Several tense seconds passed, then finally Bulma worked up the courage to ask what had happened "So Piccolo, what exactly happened, and um, what is this grave danger you were talking about?" she squeaked out her voice shaky.

The son of the Demon King glared at the weak blue hair human who would dare question him, she recoiled and attempted to hide behind the old master of Goku. he considered a variety of different options he could blast them all, or he could fly away, finally though he decided it would be better to explain everything to these three once and let them spread it to the rest of Goku's annoying group of fighters. Mainly because he needed allies to beat, not one but three insanely strong warriors, and Goku's band of misfits just happened to be the strongest fighters the humans could provide. "I'm only going to say this once so you all better listen closely, Goku and I were simply outmatched we could barely touch him even attacking together, I had a technique that could damage him but he was so fast he dodged my first attempt. Then that idiot grabbed him by his tail which apparently immobilizes members of his species but the fool believed his brother's lies and let him go."

This caused a shocked look to flash across both Krillin's and Bulma's faces, Master Roshi seemed less surprised by Goku's actions, he always tried to give his opponents the benefit of the doubt. "I took a blast to the stomach causing all the Ki I had built up for a second attack to dissipate, then he blasted the fool that had saved him in the chest as a thank you, before getting in his ship with Goku's son and leaving. he did taunt me one last time before leaving me here for you to find, by telling me he and his 'associates' would be back in around a year, they had some 'big job' they had to finish before they come back to try to finish us." a scowl forming on his face at the thought of being lumped in with the weaklings standing before him, "So I need you to gather your pitiful allies up and begin to train to help me stop these 'Saiyans' from destroying the Earth before I even get to claim by birth right and rule over it." he said bluntly before flying away from the group. he stopped himself in the air after a moment though, and turned around to speak to the group one more time, "Train with Kami for a few months so you can try to close the gap to where I am now, after that I'll find you and your real training can begin" he said a dark smile crossing his face. Before continuing his flight, He soon became a dot disappearing into the distance.

Krillin stared at the receding dot and gulped, he didn't like that smile Piccolo had given them as he was leaving. As soon as Piccolo had completely disappeared in the distance, Bulma sank to her knees, "I can't believe he's really gone guys, this doesn't even feel real." tears forming in her eyes again.

Krillin and Master Roshi each took a moment to pay their respects to Goku before deciding it was time to get moving. "Come on Bulma, we've got to prepare for the other, what they were called?" Krillin asked "Saiyan's I think" she responded her voice sounding like she wasn't all there, before she slowly collected herself and followed the others to the airship. Once everyone was aboard Krillin and Master Roshi began to talk strategy, "So we need to find Tien and Chiaotzu, Yamcha, and probably Yajirobe, who should we find first" Krillin asked his the turtle hermit.

Master Roshi was silent for a moment before he responded, "It's not going to be enough, if Goku and Piccolo together couldn't even beat one of them, adding a few more warriors weaker than them isn't going to change the equation at all in our favor, I think even with Goku's special training we're going to need more fighters on our side."

"But we're in a whole league above everyone else on the planet, besides we'd have to stop out training to help them catch up, if we can't keep up with them how will anyone else be able to help?" Krillin asked

"I'm not talking about you and the others training them I was talking about myself, and maybe Korin training them as backup." he responded to his former pupil.

"Well sure I guess that would work but who would you train?" he asked trying to think of anyone who would be close enough to their strength to be able to help in just a year.

"I was thinking we could see if Nam has kept up with his training since the 22nd tournament. Also I'm sure Chi Chi will want to fight to get Gohan back, she was a pretty good martial artist back in the day" Master Roshi said stroking his bread deep in thought.

Bulma who had been quite besides an occasional sniff since taking off suddenly spoke up "We could alert King Furry to the situation and we can see what other fighters he can dig up for the fight."

Krillin's head shot up "Great idea Bulma, I guess there are probably a couple random fighter like Yajirobe and Nam around different places maybe if we can get a couple more fighters like them and get them trained up they might be able to help, we could make it a worldwide effort." The bald monk began to smile his mood momentarily lifting. "I just have one more question that need to be answered before we can get ready to kick these guys' asses" he gulped before he continued, "Who's going to tell Chi Chi?"


	2. Chapter 2: The Preparations Begin

**Chapter 2: The Preparations Begin**

'Why do I always end up being the one to have to do things like this' Krillin thought sweat beading up on his bald head 'Ok Krillin you're one of the strongest fighters on the planet, you've fought monsters like Tambourine and Piccolo...' sweat began to bead up on the back of his neck 'ok not the best examples, anyway you're at least stronger than Chi Chi so as long as she isn't armed you'll survive, just gotta knock.' Krillin thought to himself for the 5th time as he tried to work up the courage to inform his best friend's wife that her husband was killed and that her son had been kidnapped by his uncle from outerspace "Damn it why didn't I take Tien up on that offer to learn how to fly when I had the chance" he mumbled to himself before finally reaching up and knocking on the door.

Immediately he regretted that decision "Goku! you're in trouble mister, you and Gohan were supposed to be back in just a couple hours, that was yesterday. Now Gohan's behind on his studies, if you think you're getting any lunch out of me you got anothe-" she swung the door open and was surprised with a scared Krillin instead of a sheepish Goku like she was expecting. "Oh, what are you doing here Krillin?" her tone going from one of anger to one of suspicion. "I thought you were going to be at Master Roshi's with everyone else, like Goku and Gohan... were... suppose... to.. be." she said adding just a fraction of a second to the spacing between each word to add emphasis to what she was saying.

Krillin gulped, his moment of courage fled him like he wished he could. Chi Chi continued to glare at him waiting for an answer, arms crossed a scowl on her face that seemed more fitting for Piccolo than his best friend's wife. "Uh... Uh…" he stuttered all forms of communication escaping him under her relentless glare. Her foot began to tap signaling she was on the verge of running out of patience with him, "Well I'm waiting" she said her tone sharp enough to cut trees.

Krillin mentally tried to calm himself down and tried to rebuild his now shattered courage 'Damn it this is going to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do, come on Krillin just buck up and do it, if she doesn't take the news well you can at least outrun her.. probably.'

Finally he was able to get his nerves under control enough to speak, "Ok Chi Chi it's like this, right after Goku and Gohan arrived on Master Roshi's island, someone else showed showed up, he was even stronger than Piccolo. He claimed to be Goku's brother" Krillin watched as Chi Chi's mood shifted from impatience to slight nervousness. inside her head alarm bell were ringing 'I didn't know Goku had a brother. Why isn't Goku the one telling me this? Is he still fighting him? Why isn't Krillin there helping him? Is Gohan ok? Did he get hurt? Is Goku in a hospital somewhere? What's going on?' Her mind was racing through a thousand awful possibilities in the second it took Krillin to take a breath before continuing. "Me and Goku confronted him but he knocked us both away like we were nothing, he was so fast." Krillin could see the color beginning to drain from Chi Chi's face. "Chi Chi he took Gohan." with that Chi Chi fainted.

'Well she took that better than I was expecting.' he glumly thought to himself.

"Hey Chi Chi who's at the door? Oh hey Krillin." The Giant Ox King said as he rounded the corner of the small round house that was Goku and Chi Chi's home."What happened to Chi Chi?" Ox king suddenly shouted as he rushed to his unconscious daughters aid.

"Hey Ox King." Krillin hoped the Ox King would take the news better than Chi Chi, He decided he'd just say everything as fast as he could and prepare to run if things went bad. "I telling her there was a new threat to the Earth who is immensely strong, even stronger than Piccolo and Goku together. He took Gohan and he… well he… he killed Goku even when he and Piccolo fought together against him." Krillin said the weight of his best friend's death weighing down on him.

Unfortunately for Krillin Chi Chi was just beginning to come to from her fathers hand fanning, right when he was saying the part about Goku dying. As soon as it registered with her what he had said she instantly broke into tears. "No..o..o! I'm a widow..ow..ow! and My baby's been kid… napped… napped..." She rushed over to the Ox King and began to sob in his shoulder as he just looked on shocked trying to digest the information Krillin had just revealed.

"Wait we can use the dragonballs to wish Goku back and then we can gather all the fighters and together we can beat this guy and get Gohan back" The aging Giant said stating the obvious.

Chi Chi's eyes lit up, she had been so overwhelmed by grief that she hadn't even remembered the dragon balls

Krillin knew the next thing he was going to say was going to crush the small amount of hope Chi Chi had been given but he knew it would be worse if he waited, "We can't do that guys, at least not yet. Goku's brother, right before he took off with Gohan apparently said he and some of his buddies were coming back to finish us all off in a year, so Kami took Goku for special training in other world. We need to wish him back before they arrive but Goku has to finish his training first. Until then we have to prepare for this fight ourselves to help Goku since there will be three of them when they come back instead of just one. The others are apparently just as strong as Goku's brother is. When they get here he siad they're going to fight all the strongest fighters on the planet and if we lose they'll kill everyone else. We came up with a plan though, Me Tien, Chiaotzu, Yamcha, and Yajirobe are going to Kami's lookout to train, Master Roshi has agreed to train any other strong fighters we can find to help us in our fight, and since you're one of the strongest fighters on the planet we were hoping you would help?" Krillin's voice wavered some at the end unsure of her response

He halfway expected Chi Chi would faint, or atleast begin to cry once again when she found out her son had been taken into space, and that her husband wouldn't be back for a full year, but she surprised him yet again. She completely ignored what he had said about Gohan and Goku she was focused on the last thing he had said 'They're bringing Gohan back in a year, I have one year to prepare to make Goku's crazy in laws pay for taking my son, and they will pay dearly'. An angry flash appeared in her eyes as a red fire like aura surrounded her being. She stood up and cracked her knuckles. "No one takes my son away from me, especially toouterspace, where he's constantly in danger, and he doesn't even have any of his schoolwork with him. If it's a fight they want it's a fight they'll get!" she yelled before storming back into the house to gather what she'd need to begin training.

'Well she took that better than I thought, at least she didn't kill me.' he thought sweat still running down his neck from how intimidating Chi Chi was just seconds ago. 'Glad she's on our side.' he followed up on his previous thought before gulping.

* * *

Bulma sighed as she prepared herself to talk to Yamcha again, the last time she had seen him was a couple of weeks ago and they had had one of their biggest fights to date. She had found women's underwear in his hover car, and they definitely weren't her's.

Even now she could feel her anger at him rising just thinking back on that day, it felt like her heart was being stopped on over and over again every time she thought about it. 'I've got to stop this, I'll never be able to convince him to help save the world if we get into another argument and we really don't have any time to lose, I just have to buck it up and get it over with.' Finally she walked into the game; and noticed a massive fight had just broken out.

Yamcha was having the most fun he'd had in years, no one could touch him his movements a blur to anyone who had not trained in advanced martial arts for years. He easily dispatched everyone around him, his team or the opposing team in a matter of minutes, his face shining, showing the rush even that meager fight had given him; it was something he had truly craved.

As he examined the pile of unconscious baseball players both from his team and the other team, hoping he had missed one of them so he could have some more fun, he noticed a certain blue hair women walking towards him. 'Guess she finally got over it, today rocks, I get to have my first fight in ages and I get Bulma back.' a stupid grin overtook his face as he imagined how they would make up this time.

His day dreams were dashed when she started speaking though. "Yamcha…" she seemed lost for words for a second but just a second, there was a definitely sadness there.

'Oh shit is she actually breaking up with me.' fear began to creep into the pit of his stomach, and with the fear anger. as the milliseconds flew by he quickly tried to come up with a retort to what he knew now was the inevitable goodbye, he wasn't going to take any of the 'we can still be friends' bs, if the relationship was going down he'd make sure it went down swinging.

Tears began to stream down her face as what she said next was the last thing he could have expected. "He's dead Yamcha…"

Yamaha's scheming came to a dead stop, as he tried to decipher what Bulma had just said. "Wait what? Dead? who's dead, what's she talking about?" He was at a loss for words his mind trying to make sense of her seemingly nonsensical statement. After an awkward moment of silence between the two he finally responded "What are you talking about babe, who's dead?

"Goku's dead Yamcha, some evil monster of a man showed up. He was strong, stronger than even Goku and Piccolo together. He showed up, claimed to be Goku's brother and that they're both aliens, demanded Goku help him kill everyone on Earth, and when he refused he took Goku's son. Goku and Piccolo teamed up to try to fight him but even together they couldn't beat him Goku was killed and Piccolo was in bad shape when we got there, he filled us in on the rest. Piccolo told us to gather everyone up and to go to Kami's lookout, which is above Korin's tower, to train. It's our only hope of stopping them." She was talking a mile a minute because it was the only way she could say everything that had happened in the last 24 hours before she could burst into tears.

Yamcha just started at her a blank look on his face, his mind trying and failing to process what she just said. 'Goku's dead, that can't be, he the strongest man on the planet, and if Piccolo was helping him no one should have been able to touch him… could they? Maybe I heard wrong, but then why is she upset?' his brain continued to run like that for what seemed like hours running through every possibility he could imagine. Finally when his brain was on the verge of just giving up, he decided he must of heard correctly to begin with. One of his best friends, the strongest man on the planet was dead and his killer was coming back in a year to kill him and everyone else.

"So you're serious huh, well I guess I don't have much of a choice, I've been looking for an excuse to get back into martial arts anyway." he said with a bravado he didn't fully feel, mainly because Bulma like it when it seemed like he was a tough guy. 'how many times have I trained as hard as I can only to be the first one taken out, now there's someone stronger than Goku and Piccolo combined out there and I have to try to help fight him, this is just great. Well at least Tien, Krillin, and Chiaotzu will be there to help me train, I have been wondering how Kami made Goku so strong so fast. And I guess Piccolo is on our side now too so that's a plus... I think. On top of it all we're obviously going to wish Goku back, and all together we'd be unstoppable.' "Alright I'll do it, you said to meet up at Korin's tower right?" he finally said beginning to feel better about their chances

"Yeah that's what Piccolo said to tell you guys." she responded caught off guard by his sudden confidence, she knew him well enough to know when he was faking bravery to score points, which he clearly was to begin with but after he thought about it for a few secinds he seemed actually confident. This began to give Bulma confidence that maybe they could win this if everyone works together.

"Well I guess I'll see you later, I've got to go get my stuff and get ready for training." Yamcha said his usual grin spreading across his face.

"Please be careful Yamcha" She responded planting a light kiss on his lips, no matter what he did, she just couldn't stay mad at him.

"You know me I will" Yamcha said as he and Bulma began to walk their separate ways, he back towards the dugout to gather his things, and Bulma back towards the exit for the stadium, both knowing it would be a long time before they saw one another again.

* * *

It had taken Master Roshi several days before he was finally able to contact Tien and Chiaotzu he had had to wait until Launch's mild form had come back out since she was the only one of the 3 with a phone and the blonde part of her was usually too busy out robbing banks or similar places to bother with answering her phone. Finally on his 8th attempt he was able to get an answer and find out where She, Tien, Chiaotzu, were staying now a days. They were living in a modest capsule house high up in the remote mountains in the north. the high altitude and cold weather meant it was a good place for the duo to continue their training, and provided Launch with a perfect hideout, for when her other half didn't feel like 'having any excitement'.

As he landed Master Roshi couldn't help but feel the gravity of the situation pour over himself once again, the greatest fighter the world had ever known was dead, and his killer would be back in a year, with backup, to kill everyone else on the planet unless he and a small band of his students and friends could somehow stop them, it was a great weight for the martial arts master to bare.

He sat in the seat of the plane for another moment collecting his thoughts; finally sighing he got out and began to walk towards the trio who had now gathered outside the house.

Everyone gathered could sense how grave the atmosphere was as Master Roshi approached. Even so Tien still realized the need to initiate the conversation. "Hello Master, by the look on your face, I take this isn't a courtesy call." he said causing a sad smile to form on the turtle hermit's face. "No unfortunately it's not Tien." he responded his voice reflecting the look on his face. He sighed before continuing, "I'm going to be blunt the Earth is in incredible danger, Goku is dead." he paused so the shock of what he said could sink in.

Several seconds flew by as Master Roshi let each of them work their way through the shock. Finally Launch was the first to speak up. "That's ok though isn't it? we can just gather the dragon balls and wish him back right?" the more stable version of the schizophrenic woman asked.

"Normally we would but because of the unique situation we're facing he's asked for time to train in other world before he returns." Master Roshi responded.

"Just how strong is this new threat, I mean Goku is almost unstoppable he beat Piccolo and Piccolo Jr?" Tien asked slightly nervous about the answer.

"For you to fully understand it I'll have to start at the beginning." Master Roshi cleared his throat before continuing "Apparently Goku is originally from another planet." the shock appeared on the trio of faces which he expected but he pushed onwards. "Goku's brother came to pick Goku up apparently he had a mission as a child to exterminate all life on Earth but because he hit his head as a child he never knew this mission. The man was upset with Goku for failing in his mission and tried to re-recruit him to kill everyone. When Goku declined his offer he stole his son. Goku and Piccolo teamed up in an attempt to stop him but he was just too strong, he managed to killed Goku and nearly killed Piccolo before leaving with Goku's son. Apparently not before taunting Piccolo though. He told him he would be back in a year and that he would bring his allies with him, who we can only assume are as strong as, if not stronger than he was. So we're gathering up as many powerful fighters as we can so we can prepare to fight them off. Kami wants to train you two, Yamcha, Krillin and Yajirobe himself and I'll be training a second wave of fighters myself" the Master finally finished.

The gravity of the situation, which had been weighing on Master Roshi since Goku's death began to weigh down on Tien and Chiaotzu's shoulders like it had Roshi's. "So what it all adds up to is that we're in serious trouble, We don't have much of a choice do we, continuing training at the pace we have been won't get us anywhere near strong enough in a year. Besides I have been curious just what kind of Training Kami put Goku through to make him so powerful all of those years ago, I guess this is a good chance to find out." He said as he tried to make lemonade out of the lemons life had handed them.

Good that's the answer I was hoping you'd give, what about you Chiaotzu?" Roshi asked Tien's floating shadow. "If Tien thinks we can win, then I'll definitely try." the small floating man responded with enthusiasm. "Very good, Piccolo said that Kami wanted everyone to go to Korin's tower and that Korin would have a way to get you to the lookout."

With that the group of old friends spent a few minutes attempting to catch up on what they had been up to recently but no one's heart was really in the conversation so it was postponed so that they could begin preparing for their training.

As soon as he left, Master Roshi went straight to West city to meet up with Bulma again and begin discussing the second part of their plan to save the Earth.

"There you are, what took you so long? Krillin's already been to Goku's and Chi Chi is already training downstairs, she's really tearing the gym up waiting for you. Also we need to decide who else we're going to recruit before she realizes you're here and drags you down there to begin her training." Bulma began speaking at a rapid fire pace as soon as he walked through the door, he was a surprised at how gung-ho it sounded Chi Chi was, but then again he really didn't know her to terribly well and she did marry Goku who never seemed to stop training.

"Sorry it took so long I had some trouble getting ahold of Tien and Chiaotzu." he said sitting down in a kitchen chair and sighing to himself, it felt strange to him to actually have to think about preparing to defending the Earth, seeing how he had been becoming more and more irrelevant for most of the last decade, he was now unaccustomed to the burden. "Anyway I've been trying to think of other powerful fighters." He quickly change the subject before Bulma could tear into him for making excuses. "Other than with Nam, if he's been keeping up with his training, I haven't been able to think of anyone else." he said hoping she had thought of some fighters that could help.

"That's a name I haven't heard in a while he was one of the few contestants to even give Goku some trouble the first time." Bulma said her voice becoming the complete opposite that it was the last time she had spoken. "I thought of someone also I just don't remember his name, do you remember when Goku gathered up all the dragonballs himself to wish someone that Mercenary Tao had killed back? If I remember right Goku said he was really strong, I think he was the guardian of the land of Korin or something." Bulma said hoping Master Roshi knew who she was talking about and could supply the name that she couldn't remember, she leaned over the counter racking her brain in case Roshi didn't know, unintentionally giving the turtle hermit a view of her rack.

"Hmmm let me see now." Master Roshi replied stroking his beard apparently deep in thought, or so Bulma thought until she saw the blood that start dripping from his nose and noticed he had been staring down the neck of her shirt.

"Grrr You old PERV!" she screamed before delivering a powerful punch to the seasoned Martial artist's unprepared face, knocking him all the way back into the wall.

"Uhhhh" he moaned as she stomped towards him, arms tightly crossed over her chest, preparing to finish him off once and for all. "Wait! Wait! Wait!" he cried "I remember his name your blow jogged my memory" he yelled hoping to delay his seemingly inevitable demise.

Bulma stopped just feet away from him crossed her arms and began to tap her foot with a glare that could freeze nearly anyone's blood solid. "Well I'm waiting" she said impatiently.

"Bora! His name is Bora!" he quickly said hoping it would be enough to save him from her wrath, it wasn't, she sent a powerful kick to his gut. "You're lucky you remembered his name, I better not catch you looking down my shirt again, just be sure you're at the palace on time tomorrow you damn old pervert" she said before storming away, leaving Roshi dazed on the floor his sunglasses cracked and a large lump on his forehead. 'Maybe she should be training she packs one hell of a kick he grimly thought to himself before scolding himself for such a crazy idea 'if she actually trained I might not survive the next time she lashes out.'

* * *

The next day, by the time she had flown all the way to the King's palace, Bulma had gotten over Roshi's issues, now she was just nervous about the upcoming meeting, she needed to convince King Furry that they were telling the truth and get him to authorize the whole world to help prepare for the upcoming threat.

When she landed Roshi was already sitting there, waiting for her presumably, looking just as nervous as she felt, though for an entirely different reason.

'Please don't still be mad, please don't still be mad, please don't still be mad' he silently prayed as she approached, he really didn't want to go before King Furry with a welt on his head.

"Good you at least managed to show up on time." Bulma said with more anger in her voice than she actually felt, if anything she was just trying to hide how nervous she actually felt.

"Yes well I know it's an important day, and I wanted to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible." he said glad she wasn't yelling, yelling almost always meant he'd be in pain at some point in the conversation.

"Well you got that right, let's get a move on we don't want to end up late since he agreed to meet with us on such short notice" Bulma said her mood seemingly shifting again, before walking right past the perverted old martial arts master whose eyes instantly dropped down her back side as he followed at what he hoped was a safe viewing distance.

After going through several intensive searches by high resolution scanners, that Bulma was pretty sure her own father had invented, the duo had finally made it to the official waiting room for the office if the King of Earth.

The cordial king didn't make them wait long though, he had them ushered in as soon as he finished with the elderly farmer he was currently talking too.

As they entered they noted King Furry's office was large round and very regal. The King himself was a cheerful looking dog man sitting at the desk, eager to greet his new guests. "Welcome, welcome what can I humbly do for you today Miss Briefs and hmm you are master Roshi if I'm not mistaken." His deep friendly voice was enough to put nearly anyone at ease.

Both of them were thoroughly impressed the King managed to actually look up and remember their names, his attention to detail and love of his people were just some of the reasons he was the most popular ruler in Earth's history.

Bulma decided she should give the King the respect he deserved by not beating around the bush and get right to the point none of them really had any time to spare. "I'm going to get right to the point because the Earth is in grave danger and there isn't much time to prepare to save it." She started, King Furry stiffened in his chair ever so slightly he knew they claimed to have knowledge of some impending disaster, it was why he had them worked into the schedule on such short notice but to actually hear it from their mouths still caused some uneasiness to form in the pit of his stomach. "What exactly is this danger that you speak of, and what can we do to stop it?" he asked giving his guest his utmost attention.

Master Roshi was the first to answer this time "Well for you to get the whole picture I'm going to have to go back a few years, nearly a decade to be exact. I'm sure you remember when King Piccolo made his attempt to take over the world, and his subsequent defeat at the hand of a child."

King Furry did indeed remember that event "Yes I sometimes still have nightmares about that day, I've never seen a child display such skill or such bravery, I owe that boy my life though I never got a chance to repay him."

"It's good you remember him, it will make explaining things that much easier" Roshi continued. "I'm not sure if you watched the 23rd world martial arts tournament but that same child Goku, one of my pupils, took on the child of King Piccolo in the finals of that tournament, the fighingt was fierce and in the end the entire arena was destroyed, but Goku proved victorious in the end. As per his nature though Goku was merciful and spared the demon king's child. Until a few weeks ago they were the two most powerful beings on the planet, completely eclipsing the rest of us."

King Furry knew something had happened to destroy the stadium for the tournament but since all of the cameras were destroyed and most of the people had fled, the investigators had had to rely solely on the referee's description of what transpired afterwards, the the overwhelming consensus was the referee had hit his head during a terrorist attack and his testimony was unreliable, though King Furry had seen enough to secretly believe something more incredible had happened, something more akin to the terror King Piccolo had rain down on the Earth.

"Recently though an even more powerful being showed up, the man claimed to be Goku's brother, and that Goku was actually an alien." Master Roshi let this fact sink in for the ruler of Earth.

The King thought about what had been said so far and he was slightly suspicious that he was being played for a fool, the only thing that kept him listening besides courtesy was the fact that he had seen Piccolo and the boy apparently named Goku fight with his own eyes. "That would explain the child's inhuman abilities." the king responded deep in thought.

Roshi nodded, "Anyway Goku's brother was as evil as King Piccolo himself and said he planned on killing everyone on the planet, he claimed that he and his species conquer and sell planets on a galactic planet trading market. so to combat this threat Goku and King Piccolo's son also named Piccolo teamed up to try and defeat him, but even the two strongest fighters this planet has ever seen were no match for Goku's brother. In the end Goku was killed, Piccolo Jr. gravely wounded, and Goku's son kidnapped."

The King was shocked, he thought the young man who had saved him was unbeatable, the idea that he could have been defeated seemed impossible to him. Even so he understood that a super powered kidnapper was on the loose on Earth and it was up to him to organize the army to stop him and his inevitable plans to lead the world into an era of darkness. "I understand I will call the generals immediately, we will stop this fiend I promise you that." The King announced as he immediately reached for his phone.

"I'm afraid it's not so simple your majesty, conventional weapons will do no good against fighters like them, Goku has tough enough to essentially be bullet proof since he was just a Kid, he did manage to take down the whole Red Ribbon army himself after all" Bulma said which was news to the King, 'that boy took the Red Ribbon down too, incredible he's a hero many times over yet he never came forward to take any of the credit' while the king was inwardly marveling at the boys humbleness Master Roshi cut in continuing where Bulma had left off " And you saw how unstoppable King Piccolo, was nothing could scratch him, Even I'm at a level where normal weapons cannot harm me. I assure you his brother would not even feel even the most advanced weaponry, and besides that isn't even the worst of it, His Brother left the planet, but before he left he said he and his 'associates' would be coming back with him in around a year to finish everyone off here, supposedly they are at least as strong as he was."

The king had secretly feared his troops would actually be useless if someone like King Piccolo had come along again but had hoped that King Piccolo had just used some trick or illusion that had kept him from being harmed, and that with enough time his soldiers could adapt and find a way around his tricks, apparently his hopes were misplaced. Confusion began to settle in as he tried to figure out why they were here if there was nothing he could do to help. 'Are they just doing they're duty as good citizens and warning us of our impending doom, or do they know of some other way I can help?' he thought puzzled. "If the military can't help you I'm not sure what I can do to help."

"The military can't help us with weapons, but the men themselves might be able to help us in another way. As I stated earlier I was the one who began Goku's training, if you could provide some troops already skilled in hand to hand combat for me to train up I might be able to get them in to shape to at least help us try and fight the invaders." Master Roshi continued hoping the King would help them.

The King was silent for a moment before he responded. "If what you say is true, I don't see any other option than to go with your plan, how many soldiers do you think you can train before they get here?"

Master Roshi had been thinking of how many students he thought he could realistically handle at one time for awhile now and unfortunately it was a smaller number than everyone, even himself would be hoping it to be. "My training will last 6 months, it will be extraordinary grueling so only your most exceptional soldiers will be worth training, I think I can probably handle 10 beginner students, In addition to the other martial artist I plan on training, I can train maybe 7 of your soldiers, before the results each one obtains start to really diminish. At the end of the 6 months I and the student will be going to train under Goku's second master for the final 6 months in hopes of becoming at least as strong as Goku was before the battle." Master Roshi answered his voice sober.

The king thought for a moment before deciding, "Alright let's do it I'll have the soldiers gather as soon as possible for you to decide who you wish to train, I'll also attempt to find other Martial arts masters who will be able to train other groups of soldiers so we can have as large of a trained force as possible."

Master Roshi was suddenly filled with a mixture of emotion, should he tell the King about the Crane school, and give his arch nemesis more fighters to corrupt in the name of saving the earth, or keep silent and put the world in more danger. Finally he decided he needed to minimize the risk to the world however possible, even by aiding his nemesis. "There is only one other school of martial arts that's up to the task, though I warn you the teachers are themselves not far above the invaders on the scale of good and evil, the school is the Crane school lead by Master Shen and Mercenary Tao."

The King's spine instantly stiffened Tao's reputation spoke for itself, the man was believed to be responsible for hundreds of unsolved murders, kidnappings, and robberies, though everyone was too afraid of him to press charges or even investigate incidents with alleged Tao involvement further. "Are you sure that is the only other school worth contacting?" The King's voice wavered ever so slightly.

"As much as it pains me to say his school is the only other one capable of training students up to the level that they need to be at to even have a chance to useful in the fight, no other school knows the secret to mastering Ki." Roshi's voice was grim.

"Ki is that a martial arts term, I've never heard of it." The King responded confused.

"It is the life energy that exists inside everyone, if you train yourself hard enough and know what you're doing you can harness this energy to make powerful energy blast, not only that but you can use it to reinforce your body so blows do less damage to yourself, hence why after a certain level you basically become bullet proof. You can also use it to increase your speed and physical strength to superhuman levels. It took me nearly 50 years to master it myself, but my last few students were seemingly naturals at using it and have all surpassed me" Master Roshi responded, Bulma was beginning to get irritated at being completely left out of the conversation ever since Roshi interrupted her, especially since she was the only reason they were here to begin with, but she continued to hold her tongue... for now.

"Ah I see, so you're going to train the soldiers to use this Ki against the invaders when they arrive." the King was beginning to understand their strategy better.

"Exactly only the people attacking the earth are much better at it than Roshi over there." Bulma said finally seeing her chance to rejoin the conversation.

"So the plan is going to be a safety in numbers approach then, will the 10 fighters be strong enough in just a years time?" The king asked.

"The plan is not to use me and any of the new students as the main attack force, there are other warriors some of Goku's contemporaries, my ex-students who I just mentioned are training hard to try and be the main defensive force for the earth. Each of these fighters is stronger than I am. But in case they aren't strong enough to defeat them we decided that we should train as many fighters as we could to serve an auxiliary role if needed to hopefully overwhelm the attackers. If this fails their job will be to buy us time to wish Goku back so he can try to help us." Master Roshi responded not even realizing that King Furry wouldn't know what they meant by wishing Goku back. Bulma face palmed at Master Roshi's oversight.

"Wait I thought you said Goku died fighting his brother, how could you 'wish him back', what do you even mean by wishing him back?" The king said suddenly suspicious again that this was some sort of elaborate ruse.

"This is going to sound far fetched but it's true, currently Goku is dead, but there are 7 magical orbs scattered around the planet if you can find all 7 you are granted 1 wish, My job during this year is to gather the balls so we can use the wish to bring Goku back to help us fight off the invaders. The magic orbs are called the Dragon balls; we've used them several times over the last decade or so. You can tell when they're being used because the sky all around the world suddenly gets incredibly dark, and there's an enormous dragon." Bulma said trying her best to explain things in a way that the king would believe.

"I have heard of the legend, but I've never seen anything that would indicate that it is anymore than a child's fairy tale, do you have any proof that what you say is true." The king was very suspicious now. He wanted to believe them they seemingly had an explanation as to why King Piccolo was nearly unstoppable and claimed to know the boy who managed to stop the monster but the story had just gone from far fetched, to downright insane.

"The best proof I think I can offer to show that we're telling the truth right now if for you to have some of you guards fire at me so I can prove at least part of the story, it'll take Bulma awhile to gather the dragon balls." Master Roshi responded, knowing he needed to put the king's worries at ease.

"I'm not sure if we have to go to something quite that extreme do we?" the King said suddenly alarmed.

"I am sure; I've been hit with all sorts of bullets throughout the years." The ageing martial artist responded referring to his time with Launch, he popped up and prepared himself for the bullets.

One of the guards in the room was willing to call the old man's bluff, and stepped forward, "I'll do it sir." his partner left quickly to warn the other guards about what was about to happen. He quickly aimed the gun at the old man expecting him to flinch or show some sort of fear, what he saw was the man's face stay completely impassive. "Grrr, fine here I go." he yelled before firing into the ground near the old man's feet, Roshi didn't even flinch.

"You're going to have to have better aim than that I'm afraid." Master Roshi said, taking off his shirt and pointing to his stomach as where the guard should aim.

This time the guard now having second thoughts about this 'test', he didn't want to kill an old man even if he did have a death wish, he just wanted to give him a scare and ruin his obvious scheming. He looked to the King for final approval, "Fine yes does it if he's absolutely sure."

"I am your majesty." He responded one final time. Finally the guard aimed and pulled the trigger the bullet hit right where the old man was pointing, the bullet crushed itself against his skin. It wouldn't even end up leaving a red mark on the old man's surprisingly toned stomach.

Everyone in the room minus Bulma and Roshi had their eye's comically bulge as the bullet fell harmlessly to the floor.

"As you can see we were telling the truth." Bulma declared a triumphant grin on her face.

"Yes… Yes you appear to have been." The king said nearly stunned silent as he dabbed his forehead relieve the man didn't die, his mind was spinning though, 'it's true it's actually true they know why King Piccolo was so unstoppable. I'm just going to have to believe them about the rest of it I suppose since they don't have any proof to offer for that yet.'

"I'll make the calls now, you two can relax in the lobby if you please." He said as he motioned for his guards to escort them to the lobby once more, the rest of the day would be very busy.

Nearly an hour later the King emerged, "I've called the generals and told them to gather up the troops so you can chose your new pupils, some are less than convinced though. Do you have a specific way you want to choose them?" The King announced.

"I was thinking that since it's martial arts that they will be learning, the selection should involve martial arts like a tournament, the best fighters will move on" Master Roshi responded.

"That might take a while since there are over ten thousand soldiers in the EDF." King Furry countered.

"Not all of the soldiers have to compete in the tournament it should be volunteers only because I guarantee you going beyond normal human limitations is extremely difficult, if they are to be successful it has to be because they want to be there not because they are forced to be. But if a large number still try out, will just have to let it play out we need the best fighters available" Master Roshi responded.

"Well if you think that's the best way to do it I'll have my people call around and see if we can find an arena big enough for it." King Furry said finally relenting. With that the world's ruler returned to his office to begin making arrangements for Master Roshi's tournament.

**Alright well there you have it chapter 2, It was longer than I anticipated but I hoped everyone liked it regardless. And now for the reviews.**

**NatNicole: That's what I was thinking when I started writing it, In my mind the number of outcomes of this fight in which Raditz loses are few and far between compared to the number in which he wins, I mean he didn't even break out the Oozaru form on them. So that's what I'm going to try to portray a universe where Raditz won and all the reverberations that are felt throughout the rest of the timeline.**

**super mystic gohan: Glad you liked it. The arrival timeline is going to be better flushed out in chapter 3 but for the most part the time frame be roughly the same as in the show for yet to be reveled reasons. Also you are correct Raditz is going to get stronger as the story progresses.**


	3. Chapter 3: Gathering the B team

**Chapter 3: Gathering the B team**

Goku had been sprinting down Snake way for nearly a week now and the end still wasn't in sight. While he was running his mind kept wandering back to the end of his life. He had failed, plain and simple, he let down the people who meant the most to him. He'd lost fights before but this time there were consequences, just like the fight against Mercenary Tao, this time his son had been kidnapped, taken to some far off planet to live with a bunch of killers and Chi Chi was now left without either him or Gohan. His heart ached for them he never wanted anything bad to happen to them he was suppose to protect them from things like this and he just couldn't this time. He kept seeing their faces flash before him, it drove him on like the time he was climbing Korin's tower, he wasn't going to let anything distract him anymore, not even his stomach.'I won't let you down again.' His heart was reaching out to them as he continued his run, "I promise."

* * *

(Back on Earth)

During the night one of King Furry's staffers learned that the world martial arts tournament arena had recently been rebuilt, by an ex-participant. Apparently there were plans to begin having tournaments again within the next few years, but since another suitable donor had not come forward with prize money it currently lay empty. So the King immediately rented the site for the military only tournament which would be happening the next day.

Master Roshi, Bulma, and King Furry had agreed to arrive early to the tournament grounds to thank the owner of the ground for letting them rent the stadium on such short notice. The trio planed to meet up outside the entrance, by that time though there was more than fair amount of traffic as most of the officers also tried to arrive early to gain favor with the King, so finding one another became a considerable task, in a river of people.

"Ah Master Roshi there you are." King Furry said as finally found the Martial Art's master who the entire tournament was set up for.

"King Furry, thank you again for finding this site on such short notice I hadn't even heard it was being rebuilt." Master Roshi said as he shook the dog-man's hand.

Before the King could respond he was interrupted by a voice Master Roshi found vaguely familiar. "That is because I have tried very hard to keep it under wraps, so it may be a surprise for the world." the thickly accented, gruff voice said.

Master Roshi turned around and before him another legendary martial artist stood. "King Chappa? What are you doing here" Master Roshi asked surprised to see a familiar face here.

"Yes I am King Chappa, and I am the owner of the new arena. I hope to revive the tournament that way my students get the same chance to compete that I did." King Chappa replied.

Master Roshi couldn't believe his luck, he was looking for the top Martial artists and here was one of the top ones ever standing before him. "I'm not sure if you are familiar with me King Chappa, but I am quite familiar with you, My name is Master Roshi."

King Chappa's face flashed with surprised, of course he had heard of Master Roshi he was one of the few fighters who were as legendary as he himself was. "It's a pleasure to meet you Master Roshi." Chappa said bowing in respect to the man before him. "I take it you are the King's advisor in this tournament?"

"Actually I will be the commander of a new group to defend the world from an upcoming threat." Master Roshi responded laying the bait. Much to King Furry's chagrin he and his advisers would be discussing how to best inform the people of Earth about the incoming threat soon and he really didn't want rumors to start spreading until they were ready to answer the difficult questions that would be posed.

King Chappa immediately asked "A threat what sort of threat?"

It was the question that King Furry had been dreading. "I'm sorry but unfortunately that is confidential information at this time." he cut in trying to contain the damage.

I think we can tell him if you're ok with with it your majesty, King Chappa here is fighter, strong enough that he might be able to help us defend the planet."

King Furry looked back and forth between the two, "I thought you were going to train the soldiers." he asked confused that was the whole point of the tournament.

"I am, I might just train one less of them if he is willing to help, King Chappa is one of the strongest men on the planet, I can't believe I forgot to include him in the plans from the beginning." Master Roshi responded before turning to a surprised King Chappa waiting his answer to the impromptu offer.

"I'll have to know more about this threat before I can agree, but you do have me interested." Chappa responded.

"Yes well let me start at the beginning then. As I'm sure you've heard Goku the boy who knocked you out both of the last tournaments was a student of mine. He was the single strongest fighter on the planet, beating many great fighters but his greatest victories came over the Demon King Piccolo and Piccolo's son." Master Roshi began, none of this information was new to King Chappa, he had kept track of the remarkable child who had easily beaten him, not just once but twice.

"He was the single strongest being to have ever set foot on this planet, at least he was until recently, when his brother arrived." Master Roshi continued and King Chappa took notice of how Master Roshi said arrived but stayed silent. "When he arrived we learned that Goku was in fact not from this planet, he was from a warlike alien race and sent here as a child to wipe out all of humanity. But he never knew of this mission because he had hit his head as a small child, wiping out his memory, so he grew up and became the planet's greatest defender instead. Because of this fact he refused his brother's demands that he finish his mission and as a result had his son kidnapped from him." Master Roshi paused to let King Chappa digest the rush of information he had just given him.

"So we will be helping Goku retrieve his son?" King Chappa asked trying to connect the dots.

"partially, but that's not all there is to this story." Master Roshi responded. "Goku ended up teaming up with King Piccolo's son in a desperate attempt to rescue his son and prevent the extermination of the Earth." Master Roshi continued "Even together they were not able to defeat this new foe, Goku was killed and the child of Piccolo gravely wounded. At the end of the battle we were given a small glimmer of hope though, as the attacker decided he would draw out the attack on the Earth by giving us 1 year to train for he and his allies return."

King Chappa was shocked he knew how strong the child was even 5 years ago and he had seen most of the fight between him and Piccolo's spawn, if them together couldn't beat this new foe then the world truly was in grave danger. "Of course I will help. You said you had some sort of training planned am I correct? I hardly think I need it but i will listen to your proposal anyway." The former World Martial Arts tournament Champ boasted.

"While you are a great fighter, to beat the beings we will be fighting you have to master the ancient art of using Ki, the same techniques that allow for us to do the seemingly supernatural, such as our increased strength and speed."

King Chappa had an abstract knowledge of Ki, it was how he had become the world martial arts champion, it was also the key to his ultimate attack, what Master Roshi said next though confirmed his long held ideas about other martial arts in general, "It is also the secret to using the most advanced techniques such as the Kamehameha wave." That really got his attention, the Kamehameha wave was one of the most legendary attacks ever created, even more so than his 8 armed technique. "And you would teach us how to harness our Ki to perform this technique?" he asked suspicious master level martial artists usually didn't share their prized techniques with one another.

"Yes because it is the fastest way to help get us all to the level of strength we need to defeat the invaders" the Turtle hermit responded, King Chappa could instantly tell the man was telling the truth by the conviction with which he spoke.

"It's settled then I will train with you, when will it begin?" King Chappa asked, genuinely excited it wasn't everyday you got to learn a legendary attack.

"I planning on at the end of this tournament gathering the last 2 fighters and then meeting up at this island in around 6 days." Master Roshi said as he handed over a copy of the coordinates.

King Chappa took the paper, "I will alert my students to my prolonged absence and order them to double their own training regimes." a large smile on his normally serious face and with that he turned and left.

"My that was an quite a development." King Furry said quietly not quite sure what to make of the discussion that had just happened.

"Yes it was, we were in luck, but we need to hurry and get this tournament under way now if we're going to keep the new deadline." Master Roshi said as he started back towards the arena, but was interrupted by a certain blue hair heiress, who had just arrived.

"Sorry I'm late your majesty, I was helping my father with an important invention of his." Bulma explained.

"No problem, my dear we were just about to head in ourselves so you are right on time." King Furry assured as the trio walked into the arena.

After King Furry explained the threat the world was under and Master Roshi demonstrated the power his training could give you, by destroying a decommissioned tank with just a small Kamehameha blast, nearly 7,000 of the 10,000 soldiers wanted the training. The other 3,000 or so didn't volunteer because they believed they didn't have a chance against the men they had spent years training with.

It had took nearly 3 days for the nearly 7000 fighters to be whittled down to the final 12 of which all 7 of the members of the EDF's premier special forces unit, The Blue Force. Each solders was believed to be so powerful that the only men that could even land a blow against them were the 6 other members in the unit.

The first fight of the finals, and the only fight in which members of the force would square off, would be between the current second in command of the blue force Sgt. Caspin, a man of medium height and muscular build. vs. the man who he had replaced 3 years ago after Sgt. Java disobeyed a direct order from the Captain which resulted in a successful mission but had what was considered an unacceptable level of civilian casualties, which in the Captain's opinion was any. Sgt. Java was a large man heavily built "Looks like im gunna get a chance to wipe that smug look of your face, and prove just how unworthy you are... sir." Sgt Java said a his face on the verge if a snarl as he stared at the man who had stolen his job.

"Lets just get it started Java." Sgt Caspin said a smirk on his face as he sized up his opponent, they had hated each other for years, finally he would get a chance to shut his rival up.

The referee looked to both fighters seeing they were ready he shouted "start!" And the fighters rushed each other. Sgt. Java tried to go for a quick knockout like he had the last two fights against his contemporaries, bringing his fist back for a powerful blow. Caspin had been watching the previous fights and quickly ducked into a roll right through Java's legs, knocking down him on his face. Both men quickly righted themselves and rushed back towards one another, testing each others guard, neither one willing to fully commit to an attack. Finally Sgt. Caspin saw an opening and went for it launching a quick jab towards Sgt. Java's exposed sternum, which is what Java was hoping he would do, twisting his body slightly the larger man able to pin his smaller opponent's arm under his own armpit. Sgt. Caspin instantly knew he was in trouble but before he could do anything to respond, Sgt. Java unleashed a powerful left hook straight to the side of the smaller man's head, since he couldn't roll with the hit Caspin took the full brunt of the blow, and then another.

Sgt. Caspin's world was spinning, it was either a miracle or a curse that he was still conscience.

He had now taken 3 hard blows to the head without being able to properly defend against it. So far he hadn't been able to break free from Sgt. Java's vice like grip now matter what he tried, kicking, punching, he had even tried dropping his weight to throw him right before the last punch, he was simply hoisted back and and had to take the blow anyway. Just as Sgt. Java reached back one more time intending to finish the fight right then and there, Sgt. Caspin did something unexpected, he acted as if he was dropping again and as Sgt. Java braced to lift him back up, he launched himself head first into Sgt. Java's face.

Sgt. Java staggered back as he involuntarily grasped at his now shattered nose. Sgt. Caspin wasn't in much better shape as the ringing in his head had gone from bad to worse after he headbutted his captor. Both men staggered several steps back before Sgt. Java began to get his bearings, and as he did his face contorted into a snarl, his eyes were watering and blood dripping from his nose, he didn't care about playing by the rules anymore now he was out for blood. Sgt. Java rushed blindly in a full blown rage intending to snap his opponent's neck, which gave Sgt. Caspin his last chance for victory.

As the larger man came into striking distance he swung, Caspin moved to the right at the perfect time, latched onto his attackers arm and pulled as hard as he could. Sgt. Java was already off balance from his wild swing and was completely unable to brace himself as he was hoisted into a pre-throw judo style lock, and then was promptly tossed out of the ring.

Sgt. Java may have been eliminated from the tournament but that didn't mean he was done, he immediately jumped back up ready to continue the fight. But as he was about to re-enter the ring a certain old man seemingly appeared in front of him. "You lost fair and square Sergeant, it's time for you to take your seat with the others." his voice was calm, but there was just a hint of a threat there also, a kind of confidence that was a clear indicator this man could back up his order.

"Butt out old ma-ahhhh" Sgt. Java started to say as he reached out to push the geezer who was attempting to deny him his revenge out of the way. He regretted his action before he could even finish his sentence though, as he was suddenly thrown at a very high speed back into a wall, knocking him unconscious and making a dent in the wall.

"Hmm, I guess sometimes I still forget my own strength." Master Roshi said stroking his beard as everyone present's eyes bulged. They knew the old man could make a beam of light that could vaporize things, but they didn't realize he had superhuman strength also. needless to say the most of the remaining fights ended more graciously, lest they incite the wrath of the super powered old man, though non of the remaining fights lasted very long either as the legend of the Blue Force was upheld, not a single blow was landed by any of their competition.

The final fight was a spectacle to behold, two giants stepped forth, one the commander of the Blue force, Captain Meditrain who was rumored to be the single best fighter in all of the EDF, his opponent was almost as infamous as the Captain was legendary, Lieutenant Cog, the commander of the second most prestigious special forces Delta squad.

"Looks like I finally get to avenge my squad's ranking." Lieutenant Cog said a blood thirsty smile on his face as he stared at his contemporary.

"Hm, if you really wanted to be number one maybe you should put some more effort in, Your squad has been unimpressive during the joint training missions." Captain Meditrain responded slightly bored with the whole event.

Master Roshi had kept a close eye on the Captain, he had certainly lived up to reputation as the strongest man in the EDF so far and so the wizened master was eager to see how he would fair against a tougher opponent. If anyone was hoping for a long fight though, there hopes were almost immediately dashed.

Cog rushed in and began trying to test Meditrain's defenses with a series of feints to try and get an opening. But the veteran soldier didn't bite on any of his attempts, he simply would dodge or occasionally parry the attacks waiting for his opponent to do his work for him.

Finally Cog over extended slightly on one of his feints, which was all the opening Meditrain needed. Most of the soldier watching couldn't believe their eye's one moment it seemed like an even fight, the next Lieutenant Cog wrapped his arms around his chest making a wheezing sound and then collapsed, seemingly without being hit

Master Roshi and the soldiers of Blue Force all had a clear view of what had happened though as soon as Lieutenant Cog had overextended his arm Captain Meditrain unleashed a vicious blow to captains Cog's ribs, causing his fellow giant to instinctively wrap an arm around his now bruised bones to protect them from a bone breaking follow up that never came, Which left him open for a quick knock out blow to his jaw that sent him sprawling.

To say Master Roshi was impressed was an understatement, Captain Meditrain appeared to be the closest thing to the other top tier martial artists he was hoping to recruit, though he still had a ways to go. He seemed to be at least comparable to Nam during the 21st Martial Arts tournament which gave Master Roshi hope that he and his 5 fighters could in time help defend the planet.

A few minutes later, after the medical staff had removed the still unconscious form of Lieutenant Cog from the ring. The announcer then called the 7 winners to the ring so that Master Roshi could give them their marching orders so to speak. In Addition to Captain Meditrain and Sgt. Caspin, who were by far the largest and smallest of the men gathered, Sgt. Adraic and Sgt. Aegean were two of the officers of the unit. While Pvt. Aden and Pvt. Bengal were among the longest tenured members of the squad. All of them were similar in stature and build tall and muscular with only a small amount of variation between them. Master Roshi cleared his throat before he talked to his 6 new pupils for the first time. "First off I would like to congratulate you six on your impressive fights, you all have a long way to go but at least I won't have to re-teach you all the basics." he started, his pupil's faces said there were mixed feelings on his opening statements. "As you've already heard from King Furry, the threat we will be facing will be powerful, much more powerful than any fighter to have ever lived on our world. Because of this I will remind you all one last time that this training will be the hardest of your life, your bodies will ache, and your will will be tested, some of you for the first time in your life, but at the end of the day you just might be able to help save the planet." he paused a moment to see if what he was saying was getting through to the men before him, he immediately could tell they weren't impressed with his speech so far, it was mostly the same jargon that they had heard half a dozen times so far as they rose through the ranks to their current positions. "Anyway here are the coordinates of the island i want you to meet me at, I'll be there in 2 days at most, but if you wanted to you could get there early to begin your training go right ahead, every minute helps."

Captain Meditrain spoke for the group on all matters since he was the commanding officer so he was the one to respond, "We're special forces we're ready to move whenever, we'll be there by this evening. Then after you arrive we'll spend a couple hours mastering your little technique before returning to base to resume normal mission readiness." he stated plainly before motioning for his men to move out.

'Hmmm, they're going to be in for a rude awaking when training starts, that commander of theirs definitely has an attitude.' Master Roshi mused.

"Geez, what was his problem?" Bulma asked from behind, also noticing the Captain's unhealthy self-confidence. "I bet Goku could've mopped the floor with that guy by the time he was 13." she continued voicing her irritation with the man's statement.

"Don't worry he'll get knocked down a few pegs when training starts. It's obvious the Captain has never actually met a better fighter than himself, which leads to his overconfidence." Master Roshi responded.

"That still doesn't mean it's ok." Bulma huffed as she crossed her arms definitely. Master Roshi knew that look he was getting close to the danger zone, so he decided not to press his luck any further. "On more pressing matters do you think you could give Chi Chi a message for me?" Master Roshi asked quickly changing the subject,."Just tell her to meet up for training before tomorrow afternoon at these coordinates." Master Roshi said as he handed her a second small card, with the directions on it.

Still looking pissed off Bulma responded, "Sure whatever." she mumbled still glaring as the group disappeared from view, clearly still irritated with the Captain's attitude, before storming off in the opposite direction.

'We'll that worked out well, there was no way I could find the other 2 recruits if Chi Chi got a hold of me." Master Roshi gulped at the thought of what awaited him if what Bulma had told him was right.

A few minutes later Master Roshi had already gotten in his own Capsule plane ready to find his next recruit, he just needed to figure out where he was going first. 'I suppose Korin's tower is the closer of the too, yes I think I should go that route.' the old martial artist mumbled to himself, as he started the engine of his water plane before lifting off and flying away from the capitol west towards his first stop, the Land of Korin.

It was a long 5 hour flight from the Capital there and Master Roshi spent most of the time thinking about how to best approach the situation since he hadn't actually met the man he would be trying to recruit. He was simply going off of what he had heard from Goku about his travels all those years ago. "That boy could make a friend out of a complete stranger, hopefully Bora is not only willing, but also strong enough to help." The elder martial artist said with a sigh, the weight of having to be one of the ones saving the world continuing to weigh on him, despite his early successes in rallying the Earth's future defenders.

Finally after what seemed like forever he had arrived, near the base of Korin's Tower. He circled the area twice looking for the best landing spot, after he realized he couldn't land at the closest opening because there was a tee-pee set up. He finally settled on landing a few hundred meters away, just enough space for him to walk off the leg cramp the long flight had given him, at least he hoped, it would be enough space to.

As he got out he realized his back too had gone stiff from the long period of being hunched over the controls so he begun stretching his back and was caught staring straight up at the tower. It had been over 300 years since he had last visited this land, he had nearly forgotten just how massive the tower was, and how beautiful the land surrounding it truly was. 'I can't believe I actually made it to the top of that when I was younger, I suppose I'll try it again in a few months to see if I still have It.' he idly thought to himself while he continued to stretch.

"Who are you, this is sacred land, please do not defile it with you machines." a deep gruff voice sounded from behind Master Roshi, causing the wizened martial artist to jump as he was caught off guard. He quickly turned around his hand behind his head as he chuckled sheepishly, doing his best Goku impersonation.

The man that had questioned him was near Tien or Yamcha's age only larger and much more muscular, next to him was a teenage boy who definitely had a family resemblance to the first man but appeared to be a few years younger than Goku. "Oh sorry you caught me off guard there. My name is Master Roshi. Here I'll just push the capislate button real fast." and just like that the plane turned into a small capsule that easily fit in his pocket.

Hiding his shock at the marvels of modern technology the older man continued his questions in a stern voice "Why have you come to this land Mr. Roshi, I don't suppose you will be climbing the tower like the last visitors we've had recently, will you?"

"Good so the others did make it." Master Roshi said quietly to himself before responding to the question "I won't be climbing this time I'm afraid, though I look forward to climbing it again sometime in the near future. I'm actually on a very important mission I came here in search of a man one of my students told me about nearly a decade ago a great warrior named Bora who was brought back to life with the dragon balls after he was slain valiantly defending my student from the villainous Mercenary Tao." Master Roshi responded fairly certain he was looking at said the warrior he searched for was. The younger man all but confirmed his suspicions when he, with a surprised look, turned to the larger man, who master Roshi assumed was his father and seemed to silently ask a question. The older man simply nodded before stepping forward a step and asked. "I am Bora; may I ask if the boy you spoke of might've been named Goku?"

Master Roshi smiled, "Yes that was him."

Both father and son exchanged a sincere smile before turning back towards Master Roshi, "I owe Goku my life, I told him he was always welcome here, though I haven't heard from him in years, I am glad to have the opportunity to meet his master. He is still doing well I hope."

Both of the men before him, instantly picked up the change in the man's mood, a strong sadness seemingly began to emit off of him at the question. "Goku sadly was killed recently by a being much stronger than Tao. This man was stronger than any being to ever set foot on this planet, Goku's own brother."

"That is awful, unfortunately we have not seen any of the dragon balls since the last time Goku was here, I wish we could help though." Bora's son replied misunderstanding Roshi's reasoning for seeking them out.

"We've already got a plan in place to find the dragonballs, and have someone looking for them now, but there is in fact something else I am hoping you'd be able to help us with, You see when we found out that Goku had a brother, we also found out that he is in fact an alien." he paused letting what he said set in before continuing. "Goku apparently was sent here to kill everyone on the planet but because of a head injury when he was an infant, making him forgets his mission and giving him the opportunity to become the Earth's greatest savior."

Both of the men in front of him faces' were showing signs of shock at the revelations, but he continued after a second's pause. "He teamed up with his greatest enemy the son of king Piccolo himself in an attempt to defeat his brother who was going to take his son and then finish Goku's mission. Goku died and Piccolo's son was only spared so he could deliver a message to the rest of us, in one year Goku's brother, plus two more of Goku's species will arrive to try and finish us off, the only reason he didn't do it himself is because he was injured during the struggle, and Piccolo claimed he wanted his associates in on the fun. So since they have given us a year to prepare we are gathering as many strong fighters as we can to try and defend the planet. Since I remembered Goku telling me about you, I figured I would ask you if you would be willing to help defend the planet." Roshi finished thinking over everything making sure he hadn't left out any important information.

Bora and Upa stood silently for a moment trying to go over everything that the old man had just told them, after another moment after he was sure he understood everything Bora finally spoke up turning to his son he said "For nearly 20 years defending this sacred land has been my duty, I have done it to the best of my ability defending it from every threat I possibly could. Now though in order to defend my home I must fight for the entire planet, and so the duty of defending this land will lay with you my son, until I am able to return."

Upa was shocked he figured his father would help defend the planet but he didn't expect him to agree so quickly, Nor did he expect to be thrust into the role of guardian of the sacred land so quickly he still had lots to learn. But at the same time he knew he couldn't show any surprise or fear though his father was putting his faith in him and he was going to show he was worthy for it. "Yes father I understand, I won't let you down."

Bora silenly walked to the tee-pee to gathered his sparse belongings, then gave his son one last bit of encouragement before saying goodbye and walking aboard the man's ship, for the first time in 20 years he would leave the land he had called home.

"Are we going to meet with the other fighters now?" Bora asked after the plane was able to get back in the air again. "We have one more fighter to pick up first, the plan is to pick him up and then head back to my training island." Master Roshi responded as he set the navigation system. "Get confortable it's going to be a long flight."

* * *

The entire time the tournament was going on King Furry had his people scouring the world for any hint of Mercenary Tao or the Crane school's master, Master Shen. Soon after it ended though they were finally able to contact Mercenary Tao using some of their criminal informants, who agreed he and his brother would help for a substantial fee. When they asked which students he would train and explained to him about the tournament he claimed "All of the second place fighters will do, my brother and I will make them far superior fighters to anything the old fool of the turtle school could train, I'll contact you with the coordinates to send them." with that the call was ended.

'I hope this was the right decision.' King Furry couldn't help but feel he had just made a deal with the devil.

* * *

They flew straight south for nearly 4 hours, Bora spent the time catching up on what else had been happening in the world the last 7 years. Time passed much faster for the turtle hermit than the first 5 hours now that he had someone to distract him from his own thoughts.

After they arrived where Master Roshi remembered Nam saying the desert village was located, it was nothing like what the warrior had said it was like, lush fields covered the banks of a massive river flowing down the center of a small bustling city. "Well I can see things have certainly improved here in the last decade." The turtle hermit commented, as the duo departed the plane.

Master Roshi looked around, the city was as busy as most small cities with people were rushing back and forth continuing their daily lives. "Hmm, this could be more difficult than I thought." Master Roshi tried feeling out with his senses but there were too many people in the city for him to accurately detect even someone as strong as Nam easily.

"I suppose we could ask someone where the man you're trying to locate is." Bora suggested after Roshi stood their seemingly zoning out again. "Sorry I was trying to sense where in the city the martial artist we're looking for is. I felt something that might have been him in that direction, but he feels very distant." he responded before marching off into the crowd. Bora being much larger than the average man was easily able to keep track of the old man mainly by watching for the sun reflecting off of his bald head, as he was weaving through the crowd towards the center of town. They traveled through the middle of town and out the other side, after walking nearly 30 minutes before they had reached the end of the city, but they kept on going, at the very edge there was a small group of very basic, and very worn, old capsule houses.

Master Roshi suddenly stopped and announced, "I think we've arrived." before walking straight towards the nearest house. He arrived knocked and waited, within a few moments an elderly lady with a bindi answered the door, "Yes can I help you." she asked squinting as she tried to see who it was at her door.

Master Roshi cleared his throat before beginning, "Good day ma'am, I'm sorry for disturbing you this evening but I'm trying to find an man I met nearly a decade ago and I was hoping you knew of him and could point me in the right direction, his name was Nam."

"Nam? Yes I know of him, why are you searching for him?" she asked suddenly defensive.

"He is a great warrior, the Earth is in danger from a new powerful threat, I was hoping he'd be willing to help us defend It." he responded, hoping the truth would get him the information he needed in a timely manner.

She stared at him for a minute before responding as she tried to gauge if he was telling the truth or not, there were always fast talking city people coming over to what was left of the small village telling lies to steal the little they had. "And why don't you call the military about this, instead of bothering poor Nam."

Master Roshi was afraid that the villagers would have a distaste for outsides, but continued on anyway attempting to bypass the woman by getting a better fix on where the high energy level he felt earlier was coming from. "We have already, they will be helping too but we need martial artists to help us too and he's one of the best ar-.. around" he stumbled for a minute because he got a better fix on him. "Thank you anyway for your time ma'am but I think I just found him he said as he began walking towards a nearby hill. Bora was surprised by Master Roshi's sudden change in strategy but silently followed him anyway.

After a few minutes they finally rounded a corner and noticed a man hauling a large tree over each of his shoulders, seeing how there were no large trees around this area meant he had to have cut them somewhere far off past the desert and carried them all the way across the desert, an impressive feat even for people as strong as Bora and Roshi.

The man seemed to notice the pair walking towards him and as they got nearer set the trees down as he recognized the turtle hermit who had helped him so much in the past. "Ah Master Roshi, what brings you out this way." He asked his accent thick in his voice. "I hope things are well for you." he continued quickly.

"Unfortunately I can't be visiting on better terms." Master Roshi's voiced reflected the mood that had hung over him most of the last week, "The Earth is in serious danger Nam, and we need your help to save it."

Nam stared at the Turtle Hermit, searching his mind for what he could possibly do to help that others such as Roshi and Goku could not, failing to find an answer himself he finally asked. "Of course I will help any way I can, but I'm not sure what help I could be, Goku's been stronger than me since he was a child, you too have always been far stronger than I have." He wasn't trying to be modest; he was just stating the facts as he saw them.

Roshi hesitated just a second before he began the recruiting pitch he had gotten very used to repeating lately. When he finished Nam didn't hesitate a second. "Of course I will try, I'd rather go down fighting than give up, allow me a moment to deliver this firewood to my family, tell them of the mission, and gather my things." He stated calmly before lifting the large trees once more and continuing towards his home.

Bora smiled at the fact there were others in the world willing to defend it, from what he had been told they would need all the help they could get to save the planet from the upcoming showdown.

It took Nam a mere 15 minutes before he was packed and ready to go, most of the village came to see him off, He had simply told them he had been asked to take part in an important mission to help save the planet, everyone knew and respect Nam enough to not question him further on the matter, if Nam was willing to drop everything to partake they knew it had to be dire.

And with that the trio was on their way back to the training island to meet up with the other new students. Nam had followed the exploits of Goku closer than Bora was able to but Master Roshi still spent a good portion of the 4 hour flight west filling him in on some of his ex-students exploits that didn't make it into the world news, and filling him in further on what little they knew about the attackers. Bora and Nam also took the time to get to know one another; they had similar enough personalities that they became quick friends.

By the time they arrived on the island Master Roshi felt like he didn't want to fly anywhere in a plane for the next century or two, but he knew until he got one of the ex-crane students to teach him he'd still be stuck in the cramped machine.

As they disembarked the wizened martial artist instantly noticed that something was seriously wrong, the 6 blue force members lay scattered around the ground, mostly unconscious, though one was sitting up nursing his injuries.

"What happened here Sgt… Caspin." Master Roshi asked nearly forgetting the mans name, 'There sure are a lot of Sergeants in this group.' Master Roshi mused as he waited for the man's answer.

He looked up a shocked look on his face still from the battle that had apparently been raging, but he quickly snapped out of it when he was asked a question, and shuddered before he began. "It was crazy, I've been in plenty of fights but i've never seen anything like it."

**There you have it Chapter 3, It had a major rewrite from it's original form so I wasn't able to fit the explanation of the timeline in this chapter but it'll be in the next chapter for sure. The rewrite was also why it took so long for me to get it up on here. If anyone has any questions, or sees something that you think i haven't explained well enough please give me a review and I'll try and get it answered taken care of. **

**Reviews:**

**Co co: Thanks for the review. Yes Goku is going to come back, in my mind at least it would be nearly impossible for the Z-fighters to win against the Saiyans without him. Also Raditz is going to be a main character, but not the main character, if that makes sense. His role is going to be somewhere between Tien and Vegeta's role in the actual show. and Finally Raditz and Goku will have a reunion at some point in the story so keep your eye's peeled for that.**


	4. Chapter 4: The King's Speech

**Chapter 4: The King's speech**

_(Flashback)_

Only 6 hours after the tournament had ended, the elite members of the Blue Force had already arrived at the training island and had finished unloading their transport.

"Alright men, I want everyone to get familiar with the surroundings now move out." Captain Meditrain ordered as his men began to spread out.

"Captain Vehicle incoming!" Private Aden shouted as a red convertible hover car rushed into view straight towards the grouping of solders.

Everyone in the unit immediately spread out in a defensive formation, on the off chance it was an attack heading their way, the unit did make a lot of enemies after all.

The vehicle in question came to a screeching halt right in the kill zone of the nearly circular formation the Blue Force had assumed, weapons drawn. Inside the car there was a lone, very angry looking woman who started shouting as soon as she had killed the engine. "Where's the old pervert!" she demanded of the men surrounding her. "We'll I'm waiting!" she continued when no one immediately answered.

"Ma'am I'm not sure who you're looking for, but you can't stay here and wait for them this is a restricted area." Captain Meditrain responded his voice calm, but his mind was still working trying to analyze the potential threat this woman posed.

"Don't play dumb with me I can see the perverts house right behind you! Where are you hiding him, I've got to get the real training started if I'm going to get my baby back so he can be a scholar instead of a hooligan like his father."

Sgt. Caspin leaned over to the Captain "Hey captain do you think she's one of the other fighters the old man was talking about?"

"I doubt it she doesn't look like a fighter to me." the Captain responded, just loud enough that Chi Chi could hear him.

"EXCUSE ME!" she shouted furious that at the soldiers lack of manners. "I'll have you know I made it to the quarter finals of the world martial arts tournament, not only that but I was married to and training with the strongest man on the planet for the last 5 years!" She continued poking the Captain in the chest repeatedly, much to his amusement.

"Sorry, but fighting in a little tournament isn't impressive to us, we're elite special forces. And sorry to burst your bubble but you weren't married to the strongest man in the world because I've never met you before" He said before bursting into laughter, his men all followed suit

"HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY HUSBAND LIKE THAT HE SAVED THE WORLD MULTIPLE TIMES" Chi Chi screeched causing everyone present to cover their ears. "You have some nerve I'm going to have to teach you some manners!" her voice boomed thick with venom.

"We'll I suppose I'm skilled enough to knock some sense into you without permanent damage to that pretty little face of yours. But I'm kind of out of your league; I'd knock you out to fast for the message to get through your little delusions. Private Aden show her how outclassed she is" A large grin appeared on his face as the youngest member of the squad, stepped forward eager to impress his commanding officer.

"You ready sweetheart." The young soldier said with a condescending grin as he approached her. Chi Chi let her stance speak for her.

"Aww isn't that cute." Private Aden taunted before lunging at her intending to get her pinned quickly, it didn't go how he planned.

As he was still airborne Chi Chi simply delivered a side-swinging kick, faster than most of the members of Blue Force could even follow. What they could see though was their ally's body bend from the blow and then him shooting away at a high speed, landing in a heap unconscious.

Most of the squad simply stared at their comrade's limp for a moment before rushing in to avenge him, only Sgt. Caspin and Captain Meditrain held back to watch as the others attacked.

Corporal Aegean was the next to fall. He rushed in trying to land a punch to Chi Chi's gut only for his blow to be caught, and a much stronger one delivered right between his eyes, instantly KOing the veteran soldier.

As soon as she checked to make sure the first one was out of commission, Chi Chi was immediately forced ducked to avoid a well-placed side-swinging kick from Sgt. Adriac, and then had to twist to avoid a vertical one from Private Bengal, which she used to build up momentum to deliver a devastating spinning kick to Private Bengal's chest sending the now unconscious man into a heap some distance away.

She finished her spin just in time to raise her forearm block another blow from Sgt. Adriac, before promptly punching his throat. As he staggered back both hands clutching his nearly collapsed trachea, she delivered a follow up blow to his forehead rendering him also unconscious.

"Now for your lesson big guy" She said not even trying to hide the threat her words bore

Sgt. Caspin was actually nervous, which was rare for him he was usually an adrenaline junkie, and he was the strongest member of the Blue Force besides the Captain, but he was also smart there was no way he could take on any 2 of the fighters this women had easily dispatched, let alone all of them.

"Sergeant, Take care of her, reclaim the unit's honor!" the Captain shouted curious to see how the woman would fair against his second in command.

Sgt. Caspin gulped before responding, "Yes sir." before approaching the woman who had easily bested 4 of his comrades

As soon as he got within 10 feet she launched at him. He was barely able to raise his forearm fast enough to block, the force of the blow was still enough to knock him flat on his back. He quickly used the natural bounce of his body colliding with the ground to launch himself up from his laying position into a backwards roll to avoid a downward kick, which caused a small crater to form where he had been lying.

His dodge though only delayed the inevitable as the pissed martial artist simply used the force of her downward blow to launch herself at him once more. She caught him while he was just landing back on his feet, her fist forced all of the air from his lungs as he flew back, when he landed he was too stunned to even move, so Chi Chi assumed he was unconscious.

She then turned to the only man left standing the one that had originally insulted not just herself, but her husband also, which was something she just wouldn't stand for. A true predatory smile crossed her face as she stared down her newest prey.

For once Captain Meditrain was excited about a fight. In the last 15 years he had never fought a single opponent that could even hope to keep up with him, the only real rush he could get is if he ordered entire squadrons of his men to attack him at once, and even then he easily dispatched them. This women though beat the elite of his unit as easily, if not easier than he would've, he was going to enjoy this fight he was sure of it.

The two stared one another down, one trying to size up his surprising competition, the other deciding how to best enact her revenge for the insults. In a flash they both launched, Sgt. Caspin stares wide eyed as the two fighters momentarily turned into blurs.

Captain Meditrain launched into the fight planning on overpowering his opponent through sheer brute force, his massive arm in a wide arch to build up maximum momentum. But was caught off guard when his target simply ducked under his swing leaving him off balance, and defenseless for Chi Chi's blow to his gut.

The giant staggered back, he hadn't had an opponent land a hit since he made the cut for special forces, and hadn't had someone dodge one of his punches in an even longer time. He didn't get to reminisce on the significance of Chi Chi's accomplishment long though as the women was on him, intending to not giving him a chance to recover.

Blow after blow rained down on him, and for once in his life he was truly having difficulty blocking them, her punches were as rapid and numerous as they were strong, a rare combination. To make matter worse for him, her feints were nearly flawless which kept him moving to block attacks that never came, while the real one would come from a different direction. He was starting to really take some damage when, finally the pattern ended when he moved to block faked punch and had his feet swept out from under him by a low kick.

Sgt. Caspin was shocked when the woman landed a blow on the Captain a man he believed to be essentially untouchable, but when she took his massive frame to the ground with a single low kick he was actually starting to get worried. The longer he stared at the being before him the less she seemed like a woman and the more he felt like she was some sort of monster in a woman's body.

When he hit the ground Captain Meditrain was able to roll and get a small amount of distance between him and the woman who was making a mockery of him, the strongest fighter in the entire EDF. His body was covered in bruises that were already forming, a visible testament to the strength behind the petite woman's blows. 'How is this happening, I'm the best fighter in the whole world, no one should be able to touch me.' Meditrain though as he stood for once with his guard up desperately trying to recapture the air that had been forced from his lungs almost a minute ago from a particularly powerful kick to the gut.

Chi Chi stood there arms crossed a look of contempt on her face as she watched the wounded giant try to catch his breath, for all of his big talk he had proved to be not much stronger than his lackeys. "If you apologize I'll finish this quickly." She asked, already getting bored with this fight, 'All of them were so weak there's no way they're going to be any help when Goku's crazy family brings my son back, what was master Roshi thinking.' she began to growl to herself quietly furious with the old man not only for delaying her training, but delaying it to gather weak fighters who would be no help to her.'

Captain Meditrain notices the woman appeared to have zoned out, 'SHE'S NOT EVEN TAKING ME SERIOUSLY!' he shouted inside his own head suddenly furious.

He jumped forward and delivered a powerful blow to the spaced out woman's face, sending her sprawling. He was so happy thinking he had won that he didn't notice how little damage his hit had actually caused.

Chi Chi's hand reached up a small trickle of blood coming from the corner of her lip, then shakily she rose. She wasn't shaking from pain or any head damage the blow might have done, mainly because it didn't cause any, no she was shaking with raw anger. A fury that could hardly be fathomed rose up in her, as she began to yell. Captain Meditrain stopped his self-congratulations as he turned shocked, to stare at the woman before him, now seemingly enveloped in red flames.

Before he even had a chance to react she was there in front of him, raining down a fury of blows into his abdomen, then finishing the attack with a powerful sideways kick to his head, knocking the giant sprawling, unconscious before he touched the ground.

Chi Chi breathed several calming breaths before she examined her work, "The old perv better get here soon." she mumbled under her breath before she began to spare shadow opponents to improve her technique like Goku had shown her during the first few days of their marriage.

Sgt. Caspin just lay there completely speechless, watching completely shocked at the strength and speed the woman apparently possessed. After a while she seemed to get bored with her shadow sparring and moved onto running around the entire island, he had seen her pass by 4 times before Master Roshi and the others showed up.

_(End of flashback)_

By the end of the story both Nam and Bora had both sweat dropped at the idea of a fighter with that kind of temper training with them.

"Yes, well that does sound like what Bulma said Chi Chi was like." Roshi gulped before he continued "Let's get everyone in the house before she returns; we don't want to put them any further into harm's way." Master Roshi said some sweat building on his brow at the idea of having to deal with an apparently furious Ox Princess.

Roshi, Bora, and Nam quickly got to work getting everyone up and or patched up, while they watched for her to return. They didn't have didn't have to wait long for her to get back though, and Kami was on their side for once since she seemed legitimately worn out "About… time… you… got here... you better... have... some... major... training planned... to make up… for lost time" she managed between each wheeze.

'Wow this is worse than I thought, she's going to get herself killed before the Saiyans even make it back if she's tearing her body up like this.' Master Roshi thought as he watched her as she swayed back and forth obviously exhausted "Chi Chi, you're done for the day, you've pushed yourself too far alre-.." Before the Turtle Hermit could finish his sentence she lunged at him, though in her exhausted state she couldn't even manage to get close to hitting him. After a few more fruitless seconds her body finally gave out and she slumped to the ground barely able to catch her breath.

"That is what I was just talking about, your body is in no condition to train anymore today, you've completely burnt through your body's Ki reserves, you need to give your body to recover between workouts otherwise you'll just run yourself into the ground, like you are now." The martial arts master scolded.

Chi Chi tried to muster up a glare to send the old man's way, but she didn't have the strength for it, and deep down she knew he was right, she just couldn't stand the thought of her baby being gone, without doing something to help get him back. Finally she let herself do something she hadn't done since she had gotten the news of Gohan's kidnapping, she began to cry, "My baby-y-y, those monsters took my... my baby-y-y" she sobbed, the loss of her only child hitting her again full force.

"Chi Chi, come here." Roshi said for once completely ignoring the chance to get a peek at her cleavage, as he reached down and helped her to her feet, "We'll get you rested up tonight, and you'll be ready to go bright and early tomorrow." he said in the most soothing voice he could muster. He led her to the house and got her set up with one of the cots Bulma had provided them, within a couple minutes she was asleep like the other's completely exhausted.

'I'm going to have to keep a close eye on her." He thought as he went outside to help his only conscience students get acquainted with their home for the next year.

When he went back outside both Nam and Bora had already unloaded their sparse belongings had had started their own light spar. As he watched he noticed that Bora had a clear advantage in strength, but Nam was far superior in speed. He watched for a few more minutes as they traded jabs and punches, before deciding it'd be better to call tonight lost and just start anew in the morning when King Chappa arrived.

"I hope the others are making better progress than we are." Master Roshi mumbled to himself before heading in to cook some food for everyone.

* * *

King Furry was on the verge of panting as he sat in his favorite chair in his bedroom, he was about to deliver the most important address to the people of Earth of his life. He had to strike the perfect balance to fully warn the people of the impending invasion while avoiding causing a full blown panic.

He was snapped out of his trance like state by one of the camera men "we're live in 5 your majesty."

"Ah, I'll be right there, thank you." He hastily said before looking at himself on last time in the mirror, deciding he looked fine he went back to his previous thoughts as he navigated basically on autopilot back to his desk.

By the time he arrived he was already down to 2 minutes and they disappeared faster than he thought was possible, before he realized it the main camera man was already counting down the last 5 seconds. 'Here we go' he thought to himself just as the red on indicator turned on the camera and he was given the signal to begin.

His natural political instincts took over immediately and all the nervousness vanished. "Good evening my fellow citizens of Earth. I have scheduled this sudden announcement to give you advanced warning of a dire threat to the Earth. In less than one year an alien invasion force will arrive to try and attempt to wipe out all life on Earth. In total we expect 3 fighters to arrive in approximately 11 and a half months. Although the attackers are small in numbers they make up for it in unbelievable strength, conventional weapons will not even affect them, much like the monsters released on the planet during the terror of King Piccolo's attacks.. Each one of them is believed to be much stronger than the King Piccolo who was defeated just 7 years ago, by a great hero. A young boy named Goku Son, who competed in the world martial arts tournament 3 times as a child reaching the finals each time and winning the 23rd tournament against the child of King Piccolo."

King Furry took a moment to take a drink of water before starting once more. "A specialized team has been gathered to prepare to combat this threat. It will be comprised of the strongest fighters on the planet, In addition to Goku Son, and the child of King Piccolo, the group will be comprised of several previous world martial arts champions, competitors, and other elite level martial artists, in addition to the military's own Blue Force. They are the Earth's best chance for victory, but that doesn't mean they are our only hope. If you know of or are a powerful martial artist who wants to help defend the planet please contact us at the number below so we can begin your training immediately. We ask that during that during this time, everyone who has not dedicated their life's to martial arts, continue on with your lives as normally as possible, any sort of massive disruption could hinder the defense force more than help them. In addition when the time comes for the invaders to arrive we will ask all news crews to keep their distance from the fighting as to minimize civilian casualties, we will be working on other means to broadcast the battle.

The King continued his speech for several more minutes, but at least one man, deep in the northern mountain range was already on to bigger and better plans. He had only begun watching the speech at all because his computer's sound analyzers had detected the King say the name of the man's arch nemesis, Goku Son. The computer immediately rewound to the beginning of the speech so its creator could see the whole message. "Hmm, the planet is going to be attacked and that pest Goku is going to try to defeat the attackers, interesting, very interesting." he began to twirl his large moustache, his mind spinning with how best to use the situation. He suddenly stood up and began to pace back and forth among his creations, most were far from complete, such as his new captives who he hadn't even had a chance to start improving yet. Out of his purely mechanical inventions though he had several who were still at least 4 years from completion.

Finally a smile began to spread across his lips, he figured out how to best handle the situation, coming to halt before his two most compete inventions, "Yes you two will do nicely." his said his voice barely above a whisper, before breaking into a manic laughter, that echoed throughout his lab.

* * *

The night had passed quietly at the site of the Turtle school, and before any of the new student's knew it was time to get up and begin the first day of their new training.

After the group had eaten and made it outside, most still grumbling about how sore they were, or giving the group's only female, dirty looks when she wasn't looking.

"First off let's do a test to see where everyone is currently at." Master Roshi suddenly said a smile on his face as he remembered giving Krillin and Goku this same test. "Just a 100 yard dash for now should do." he said as he fumbled through his pockets looking for his stop watch, after a moment he found it and asked "Alright who wants to go first?"

Sgt. Aegean raised his hand first he was one of the two fastest members of the Blue force, he decided he would try and assert his dominance over his rival, Sgt. Adriac, at least in terms of speed, once and for all.

Everyone lined up 100 yards away from the tree that would be the starting point for the race, and in the meantime Sgt. Aegean took the opportunity to rid himself of his heavy combat gear that might weigh him down. "Alright now, ready... set... go!" Master Roshi shouted and he was off. Crossing the finish line with the speed of an Olympic runner. After the time was read, 10.05 seconds, and some choice words were exchanged between the bitter rivals, it was Sgt. Adriac's turn to try his luck. He knew he'd have to be at his best to get a better time than his arch rival, but he was confident in his abilities, after he stripped of his combat armor he was ready to go. Again Master Roshi gave his count down and again a Blue Force member displayed amazing speed, just below normal human limitations, a time of 10.08 seconds just barely slower than his rival. A shouting match ensued about the wind interfering and a variety of other objections before Roshi had had enough. "That's enough!" he shouted surprising all in attendance who had never heard the old man raise his voice. "You were both impressive but we have others to test so you two can finish this discussion after we finish training, now who's up next." his voice changing from commanding back to normal instantaneously.

Nam was the next to volunteer; he was confident in himself and was interested in how he'd match up against his fellow defenders of Earth. Unlike the previous two competitors though, he didn't crouch down into a runners stance he simply stood there eye's closed finding his center. Most of Blue Force were whispering to each other about how Nam must be a novice, among other things, Master Roshi couldn't help but smirk when he heard the whispers though, he knew what Nam was capable of from their experience at the 21st world martial arts tournament, and as soon as he said go everyone else present got a glimpse of what he was really made of too. In getting a time of 6.15 seconds, nearly as fast as Master Roshi's average result, Nam displayed speed never before seen by anyone besides a few elite martial artists, and the star struck fans of the world martial arts tournament, to which the last couple of rounds were little more than moving blurs to.

Most of Blue Force were stunned they stood their eye's bulging, mouth agape trying to come to terms with the fact the man before them had just beaten the world record by nearly 3 seconds.

The Blue Force tried their best at the run but most fell in between 10.5 and 11 seconds, only Captain Meditrain even got close to the times of the units fastest duo with a time of 10.2 Seconds.

Chi Chi was preoccupied doing a set of one armed pushups at the time for the second to last run so Bora went first. Most of the Blue force were snickering to themselves confident that the giant of a man wouldn't be able to accelerate his muscle ladened body enough to even reach 12 seconds, again they were proven wrong as Bora launched himself like a charging rhino across the field the second Master Roshi said go. Getting an impressive time of 7.2 seconds, still well above the world record.

"Chi Chi, It's your turn." Master Roshi shouted interrupting her count for her second set of the morning. She gave him a glare that nearly made him cringe, but got into a sprinting stance anyway, she wanted through the preliminary tests as fast as possible to begin the actual training. She was a blur for most of the men standing there, coming in with a time of 5.8, which surprised even Master Roshi, 'amazing she's already almost as fast as I am.'

"Well those were some impressive times, very impressive actually; most of you are already at normal human limitations, though a few of you are already in the process of moving past them as we speak. The first part of the training will be about pushing yourselves beyond these limitations. I'll give you an example of it in case the message hasn't sunk in for some of you yet." Master Roshi said as he took of the new heavier turtle shell he just started wearing then he tossed the stopwatch to Nam and started stretching as he walked down the same starting spot everyone else had. Nam called go and Roshi turned into a blur. Coming in with a time of 5.2 seconds. To the surprise of nearly everyone present, even the ones that knew he was powerful didn't expect him to be that fast, except Nam of course who had seen Master Roshi fight in the finale of the world Martial Arts tournament against Goku. After hearing his time Master Roshi was glad to note that his time had actually improved over the last decade.

"Now the-" Master Roshi started to say before being cut off, "Do I get to run also." A thickly accented voice asked from behind, everyone immediately turned to see King Chappa standing there. "Ah King Chappa I wondering when you'd arrive, yes we can time you also." Master Roshi replied eager to see how his last student stacked up. King Chappa turned into a blur coming in with a time of 5.25 seconds, which shocked everyone, minus Master Roshi. He knew King Chappa was at the very least near his league following the 23rd martial arts tournament.

"Very impressive King Chappa, I think I'll have to get heavier shells after today, but for now these will do." he said before walking over to the side of the house and lifted a massive stack of turtle shells, which required a great deal of effort even for him. Before walking over and dropping them off in front of his students.

"Alright I want the you 5 in the 50lbs shells, Captain Meditrain can have a 75lbs shell, Nam, Bora can both have 100lbs shells, and Chi Chi and Chappa can have 2 of my own shells, they're nearly 200lbs." He said before beginning to stretch, while his student's stared at him confused. Finally noticing this he said "Well hurry up and get them on so we can start training."

This immediately spurred Chi Chi into action, which in turn got the others to follow her lead. "Now what" she asked annoyed, by how slow Master Roshi was taking the training that morning so far.

"Well first let's warm up with a light jog so you all get use to the additional weight." Master Roshi responded before beginning to jog down the path at a pace just fast enough to keep the now weighed down fighters uncomfortable.

They ran for nearly 5 miles nonstop, before Master Roshi finally came to a stop. Along the way they had done zigzags, done skipping, high knees, and butt kickers, all of which added up to even the strongest of them beginning to feel the burn in their legs. "Well that's enough running for now." Master Roshi said as he caught his breath, "Time for a few stairs." he said as he started up a whole mountain worth of them, Chi Chi right on his heels, and the other's single filed behind them. As soon as they were finished climbing though it was right back to running, after the crossed a massive ravine on a log bridge that is. In total the run took the group nearly 3 hours to complete, at the end of which everyone collapsed on the ground panting, Master Roshi included, he had never made the run with his new heavier turtle shell before.

"Alright… I think… I think… we should…. take a short break." He managed to get out between pants. He got mostly grunts in response. The 'short' break lasted the next half an hour, Chi Chi was the first one back in the action forcing her body to start her one handed pushups again, only this time with the added weight of her turtle shell, shortly after that Master Roshi ordered break over and gathered everyone up again to discuss the next part of their training.

"Good job on the run everyone you all kept up better than expected. For this next part of training I will be breaking you into 2 groups. Since some of you are already at the point where you're bodies have enough strength to easily handle channeling Ki, I will begin teaching you the secret art behind it. The rest of you will continue building up your strength." Everyone had an idea of how the 2 groups would play out, but that didn't mean everyone was going to easily agree to them. "Nam, Bora, Chi Chi and King Chappa, while I get the Captain and his men started on their next part of their training I would like for you to have a 4 way spar."

Right on cue though the Captain immediately objected, "My men and I are the elite special forces unit of the EDF. We are only here for one reason and one reason only to learn your technique that the King claims will be useful against the invaders, so you will teach us it now." Meditrain demanded taking a step towards Master Roshi in an attempt to intimidate him into complying.

"You and your men are strong I'll give you that, unfortunately none of you are strong enough to control you're Ki usage at an adequate level for that part of the training to be useful for you yet." Master Roshi calmly responded, which wasn't the answer the Captain wanted. As he reached out to grab his supposed teacher by the shirt to further intimidate him the old man to vanish from view.

Suddenly a voice from behind caught him by surprise, "How about I make you a deal, If you or any of your men can lay a single finger on me in the next ten minutes I'll let you train with the others on the fast track to learning the technique, and if you fail you follow through on my training my way without any further complaints." Master Roshi had a stern look on his face, he didn't want have to delay the training to teach his new students humility but it appeared as if it would save more time in the long run this way.

Captain Meditrain just scoffed at the challenge Master Roshi presented him, completely ignoring the fact Master Roshi could complete the hundred meter dash in half his own time, "I'll be able to easily catch you old man without the help of any of my men." and with that the giant lunged at Roshi, only to pass through Master Roshi's after image and crash into the ground. But this minor embarrassment did little to slow down the hulking giant as he rushed after him again and again, to half the groups amusement, and the other half's chagrin.

Half way through the allotted time Captain Meditrain finally partially relented and ordered his men to try and catch Roshi also. Which simply made the situation funnier for the four students not being disciplined, as supposed elite soldiers crashed into one another as they passed though after images of an old man.

Finally the time was up, and the Blue Force thoroughly embarrassed. Master Roshi finally came to a standstill and looked over his now embarrassed students and their irritated commander "There now then I'll give you a few more minutes to catch you're breaths before we begin your training." Captain Meditrain responded with a glare, "No we begin now, I won't have my men babied." He was furious with their performance, and if the old man could make them that fast he wanted to get the training over with as soon as possible.

"Alright then follow me." Master Roshi said before breaking into a slow jog again.

They had to run about another half mile when they came to a large open field with an elderly farmer standing in the center of it. "Ah Mr. Roshi, right on time as always, it's good to see you again." he greeted a large smile on his face as he remembered the last time his acquaintance had brought student his way. As the group got closer he turned to the young men gathered around him and bowed saying "I just wanted to say thank you in advance for all of your hard work, and thank you Mr. Roshi for thinking of me again, I appreciate this very much" before straightening up and walking away without a response from the confused men standing there.

"Master Roshi, what was he thanking us for?" Captain Meditrain asked suspicious about the old man's addition of 'in advance' to his thank you.

Master Roshi turned around and a knowing smile on his face, the same half smile that the Blue Force members were quickly learning meant pain and suffering for them. "He was thanking us because you 6 will spend the rest of the day plowing these fields, with your bare hands." he stated plainly as if the reasoning was completely obvious.

Captain Meditrain was immediately irate, "What the hell do you mean we will be 'plowing the field's with our bare hands' were elite soldiers not farmers! You said you'd be teaching us to combat super powered invaders, what could this manual labor possibly teach us" convinced the old man had lost his mind. The rest of the squad offered similar sentiments.

"Teaches you? It teaches you nothing, what it does is provide you with an opportunity to increase your physical strength and stamina in an easily repeatable way. Now I think we've spent enough time talking the Saiyans will be here in less than 50 weeks so it's time to begin, unless of course you're going back on your word and I'm wasting my time even talking to you." Master Roshi responded, making it clear he was done tolerating the captain's back talk.

"No I'm a man of my word, but you better not be wasting our time, or you will regret it." Captain Meditrain said trying to bolster his own ego, though after the last two days he had had, he was starting to believe he couldn't back up his threat.

"Don't worry as long as you actually try to push ourselves beyond your limits it won't be a waste of your time, but if you don't I will regret wasting my time attempting to train you." Master Roshi responded issuing a challenge to them all. "Well I leave you all to get started so I can check on the others." and with that he turned and started to jog in the opposite direction once more.

The entire unit immediately turned to the Captain for their orders, he for his part growled in frustration but ordered "You heard the man, let's get to work." before beginning to dig a row himself, his men following shortly after.

When he made it back to the others the spar was just heating up as Bora and Nam were mainly focusing on one another while Chi Chi and King Chappa exchanged blows. He watched the exchange for a moment keeping a mental tally on what each could improve on. After a few more minutes he decided that was good enough "Alright, time for the most important lesson I have to teach you, please gather around" he suddenly announced throwing most of them off.

When they had gathered he sat down and crossed his legs motioning for them to follow his lead. "The first step towards training that will actually make us useful against the invaders is learning how to consciously access your Ki; this is a very difficult task to do properly so I suspect it will take most of you several days at a minimum to achieve. Before you can even begin to search though you must quiet your mind and become completely in tune with your own body, once you're in tune with your body you can find your energy, once you find your energy it's just a simple matter of channeling it slowly out through your arms and into the point between them." Master Roshi said before closing his eyes, which no one was able to see because his sunglasses, and began to focus his energy towards his hands, within a moment a small ball of light formed between his hands, no one present was very surprised either due to his past presentations, or through past contact with Goku, after holding the energy for a moment making sure everyone saw it, he released it and it vanished almost instantly. "See nothing to it, now why don't you all give it a try." He said as he watches them expectantly. They were all surprised by how vague his description of what they had to do was, but decided to just give it a try, and see how they do.

Within a few seconds King Chappa, suddenly began to feel the energy flowing out from his palms, a victorious smile appeared on his face as he opened his eyes to see the a ball of energy roughly the same size as Master Roshi's glowing between his hands. Master Roshi was astounded he suspected Chappa would be the first to master this particular part of the training but to Master it in only a few seconds was incredible. He was brought out of his shock when his near equal spoke "So I get to learn the Kamehameha now am I correct." King Chappa said as he let the glowing ball diminish.

The others stopped their own attempts, in order to marvel at the fading light as their comrade spoke. Master Roshi stroked his beard for a moment before responding; well I suppose that is the logical next step in your training." Master Roshi then jumped up and motioned for him to follow, "I'll check back on the rest of you in about an hour while I get King Chappa going on the next set and check the progress of the others.

He led to him the ocean, and stared out at it for a few seconds before he turned to face the man who was his contemporary as much as he was his student. "Before we begin, I want to warn you this technique took me 50 years to master the first time, with it you will have incredible power, I myself blew up the moon using it before, so with it comes great responsibility." King Chappa immediately nodded that he understood.

"Alright then to use the Kamehameha wave is similar to generating the small ball of Ki but on a much larger scale, you have to focus a lot more energy into the spot between your hands to make it useful, which is why the incantation is useful, it allows your body to get use to subconsciously gathering your energy." Master Roshi said he fell into the well-known stance facing out towards the ocean, "KAAAAMEEE…" He began as a large sphere of energy formed, "HAAAMEEEEEE" everything he held the chant the larger the sphere grew, King Chappa could feel the energy radiating off the sphere pushing against his skin, it was incredible, "HAAAA!" Master Roshi shouted as a pillar of energy shot out towards the ocean causing two walls of water to form on each side of the beam.

King Chappa couldn't help but stare, awestruck at the sheer power of the attack, it was a truly incredible, and even when it was done he couldn't find the words to comment on it. Master Roshi then turned, "Care to give it a try?"

King Chappa was taken aback, was that all there was to it, to try. "Possibly I-" He was cut off before he could continue, "It really is the best way to learn the technique is to just do it and not think too much of it, that's how most of my students from Goku on have learned it." Master Roshi said gesturing for King Chappa to just try the attack. King Chappa just nodded before assuming the stance Master Roshi had taken just a moment before. He cleared his mind like he had before, and began to let the power flow out of him "KAAAMEEE…. HAAAMEEE…HAAA!" He shouted taking less time to hold the chant than Master Roshi had since it was his first time he didn't want to overdo it. The results were still spectacular a pillar of energy still over half the size of Master Roshi's own blast shot forth, cutting right through the massive bounce back wave that had formed from Master Roshi's own attack detonating in the ocean. When it was done, King Chappa couldn't help but notice the attack had done a good job draining him, unlike holding the small ball of light had, as he began to slow down his panting that he had just realized he had been doing.

"Good job that was a very impressive good go, let's try a few more to get a good workout in before I check on the others." Master Roshi said before taking the stance once again as he began to power up, before firing another blast, they ended up getting in a rhythm of firing their blasts to destroy the waves the other had made, saving the island from taking considerable wave related damage.

(Back near Kami house)

The trio sat there eyes closed for a few minutes trying to clear their minds, Nam who had trained in mediation before was having an easy time of it, Bora hadn't had much formal experience in mediating but his life of near solitude him a great deal of mental discipline himself, and so the task was also fairly easy for him. Now all they had to do was locate their energy.

Chi Chi on the other hand, was having to deal with a mind that was never truly clear every time she tried to relax, every time she lowered the mental shield that kept her from breaking down, all of the pent up emotions would rush in like they had the day before when she was too tired to fight them anymore. Her frustration continued to mount the longer she sat there.

Master Roshi decided to give King Chappa a little while to recuperate, So he jogged over to where the Blue Force were hard at work with their fieldwork, It was evident that a few of the weaker members of the squad were beginning to tire down as they were moving relatively slow compared to the others, especially Captain Meditrain who seemed to be completely devoting himself to the task. This brought a small smile to his face, maybe he'd get through to the Captain after all.

Deciding to not disturb them he then jogged back to the other group to check on their progress.

Everyone had been sitting there silently for over an hour, Before suddenly Nam felt it he had done it, he opened his eyes slowly as he stared into a bright blue ball of his own energy, the crackling sound it made, caused both Bora and Chi Chi to open their eyes in surprise at the sudden brightness.

Master Roshi was shocked 'Amazing, my students just keep exceeding expectations, I figured at the very least it would take a few attempts for anyone to get any results at all but he's managed to access his energy the first time, he had expected King Chappa to but that was because he had already mastered a technique that require conscience use of ki just in a different way.

"Very good Nam." Master Roshi's voice cut through the silence that had permeated the area over the last hour, everyone turned surprised that Master Roshi had arrived at the exact moment that Nam had completed that portion of the training. "I honestly didn't expect anyone else to figure out how to access their Ki for a couple days, how are you two progressing?" Master Roshi asked Chi Chi and Bora.

Bora was the first to respond, "I think I am getting close, before Nam had his breakthrough I had just started to trace how the energy flowed through my body." This was yet another testament to his student's rapid advance, Master Roshi was astounded at this rate all of his advanced students would be well on their ways to catching him in a matter of days. "What about you Chi Chi?" he asked expecting similar results.

Chi Chi responded to his question with an angry glare, followed by a frustrated growl, "grrrrr, how the hell am I supposed to find my Ki when you don't tell me where to look." a crazed look in her eyes as she barely restrained herself from attacking her teacher "You were heard what I told the others too, maybe you aren't thinking about it the right way. Ki is your life energy it flows all throughout you already, all you have to do is learn how to control the flow once you find it." he responded taking a few steps away from the potentially volatile woman.

"Yes you already said that but HOW DO I FIND IT!" she yelled, causing all three of the men in earshot to cringe.

Master Roshi began to sweat profusely not wanting to take a beating by a women when he didn't even grope them, stare at them inappropriately, or perform any of his other usual moves. "I told you that earlier, you have to completely clear your mind an-" he was interrupted just as he was taking another half step up in case she attacked. "HOW CAN I CLEAR MY MIND WHEN MY HUSBAND IS DEAD AND MY BABY BOY IS KIDNAPPED? she yelled again this time jumping up and stomping towards him.

Roshi's mind was racing when a woman started yelling usually it meant that pain would be coming soon, finally he thought of something that just might save him, He could sense the emotional turmoil that had manifested itself the previous evening boiling just below her surface, clearly that was what was keeping her from clearing her mind. "The only way to access your Ki is by clearing your mind and the only way you can get strong enough to fight the Saiyan's is by learning to master your Ki. But before you can battle the Saiyans you must first defeat you own emotions. I know you're capable of it Chi Chi because you're determined, you're not going to let anything stop you from saving your son." Master Roshi said attempting to change Chi Chi's focus from anger directed towards him back to determination for saving her son, and it seemed to work as she hesitated as she took the next step, before sighing in frustration "You better be right about this" she muttered as she sat back down, crossing her legs again to try and find her center as he had called it earlier.

'Boy I dodged a bullet there' Roshi thought to himself amazed he was still alive at the moment, suddenly a thought of self-preservation crossed his mind 'I better get some distance between me and her incase she gets frustrated again.', before he hurriedly jogged away, motioning for Nam, leaving Chi Chi to find her way through her own mental blocks, and Bora alone with her.

After giving the newest ki user the same basic overview he had given King Chappa and gotten him started on the training, which King Chappa was just restarting when they arrived, he decided to pay the Blue Force another visit.

As he began walking back towards the field he had left the Blue force he noticed from a ways off that only one member of the blue force was still moving, Captain Meditrain's giant form was easy to recognize, and it was also clear was just barely still going, the rest were laying on the ground panting heavily. He was proud with the progress they had made on the field that day, and told them they were done for the moment.

After returning to the group of the Kamehameha wave's newest masters, and spending a considerable part of the early afternoon, giving himself a workout, as he powered up to his maximum during this period, which ended up draining him much faster, he wasn't use to sustaining his bulky form.

When he felt he couldn't sustain another wave he dismissed them for the time being so that they could eat and recharge. Before he could join them though he needed to pay a quick visit to the field he had left Chi Chi and Bora meditating.

He was moving relatively slowly so that he could conserve energy to escape in case Chi Chi was still frustrated.

When he had made it back to the small field that he had left the Amazonian like woman, he was met with a sight that was the last thing he had expected, Chi Chi and Bora were no longer sitting on the ground meditating, but both firing twin yellow beams at one another, attempting to push one another back.

Master Roshi was shocked not only did she apparently break down her mental walls, but she then was able to gain such a command of her ki to such an advanced degree in just a couple hours that she could control two beams of it at once, a truly astounding feat for a beginner. "Amazing I-" Master Roshi started to say before an angry Chi Chi whipped around to face him furious yelling "about time you got back we've been standing here holding these beams for nearly an hour so as to not waste any more of my time! Teach me the attack now so I can start the real training." She shrieked causing him to back away as quickly as he could, "alright, alright I teach you" Master Roshi said quickly waving his arms in front of him signaling his surrender to her demands. As he slowly followed a still fuming Chi Chi back to the ocean shore he couldn't help but imagine what the next few months would entail, his mind did not predict a happy future for himself 'What have I gotten myself into, I hope this will be worth it in the end.'

**There you have it, chapter 4. First off thank you everyone who has kept up with Culture Shock through chapter 4 so far I hope everyone's enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it. secondly i'd like to apologize to everyone for still not fitting the explanation of the Saiyan's arrival in this chapter, the re-write ended up being more extensive than I originally anticipated. Chronologically it's in the very next section I have so, I don't see any way I don't get it into the next chapter. **

**On a side note I'm curious if anyone can guess what the Blue force member's names are a pun off of, if you feel like guessing just throw it in at the end of your review. **

**Now onto last chapters reviews.**

**Reviews:**

**enlyasurgeon: Thanks for the review, I always like to hear someone is excited about the story.**

**super mystic gohan: Glad you're still following the story. In the show Master Roshi knew about there being 2 other Saiyans because on his island Raditz said there were only 4 Saiyans left in the universe counting Goku, which i didn't specifically reference in the story since it happened before. As to their power I guess i didn't do the best job explaining that, it was meant to be sort of a assumption that the others were making. Kind of like preparing for the worst case scenario. Raditz is going to have a fairly major role throughout the story, It might not be in the way a lot of people expect though. His reunion with Goku is going to be really fun to write and i'm looking forward to when I get to it. and finally the z fighters going to have a _blast_ when the training with Piccolo begins. (and by blast I mean they will be blasted repeatedly in addition to the daily beatings they will be receiving.)**


	5. Chapter 5: Welcome to the Family

Chapter 5: Welcome to the Family

4 months had passed in what seemed like an instant for the duo, mostly because they had spent the entirety of the trip in a drug induced hibernation, which was now unfortunately over. Raditz had to wake up and make sure the child impressed Vegeta enough that they both weren't killed.

As he forced himself awake and gets out of the ship, carrying the PTO's latest unwilling recruit under his arm. He took in his surroundings; it had been a long time since he had been on one of Frieza's barrack worlds. this particular one, Frieza planet 66, was currently a barren world, though at one time it had been covered by a worldwide forest covered with mile tall trees, dangerous animals, and a powerful native species, it had taken 2 full teams of Frieza's elites nearly a full week to get the planet under their control from the natives. In the end though, they ended up having to burn most of the forests to eradicate the creatures that lurked in their depths. The environmental damage of destroying the forests meant the price for the planet dropped significantly so Frieza just kept the planet himself as an outpost, which made it home for PTO soldiers like himself.

Walking into the main residence hall of the base, Raditz couldn't help but begin to feel the adrenaline began to flow through his veins as he thought about whether Vegeta would agree the child was as useful as Raditz saw him.

He walked down the halls purely on muscle memory, lost in his own thoughts, only snapping out of his trance when he arrived in front of a plain white door, 'well here we go' he thought as he involuntarily sighed, today was either going to be an amazing success in which he was finally commended on his sound judgment or the day Vegeta finally decided to end his miserable life.

He opened the door just missing the best part of one of Vegeta retelling one of his favorite missions which apparently Nappa found hilarious and was roaring with laughter, and so it took the them a few moments to realize he was standing there, at least he like to think so, it was better than them ignoring his presence.

Finally Vegeta acknowledged Raditz presence, "So this is your half breed nephew who nearly managed to kill you?" Vegeta asked staring at the still sleeping child with a seemingly impassive face; though his tone made it clear he was directing an insult towards Raditz.

Raditz had sent a short message back detail the boys attack, he knew that doing so would likely earn him scorn, but he felt it necessary that Vegeta and Nappa meet the boy as quickly as possible so they could finish his brother's adopted home off together, "Yes, this is the boy who displayed impressive strength for his age." he responded, wording it as a passive aggressive counter to the insult hurled his way.

Nappa pressed his scouter as he stared at the child, "10!" he shouted before breaking down into a massive laughing fit, "You hahaha, you were almost killed hahahaha by a child with a power level of 10 Ahahaha." his booming laughter echoing throughout the room.

Nappa was barely able to stay on his feet as the laughing stretched on and on, which nearly caused Raditz to snap angrily at his superior, the last 20 years of near constant beatings for such outbursts was the only thing that kept him from issuing a sharp retort. Instead he tried to respond with his voice as calm as possible. "The child may only have a power level of 10 now, but when he was angry his reading shot up over 1500."

Nappa stopped laughing nearly immediately, a doubtful look on his face, Vegeta seemed equally skeptical, "You mean to tell me this runt has a power level of 1500 at his age." Nappa asked incredulous, "That would've made him stronger than all but a handful of the super elite children when they were his age, hell it would mean the boy's stronger than I was at his age. Your scouter must've just malfunctioned you moron." Nappa continued before staring at the child, seemingly trying to discern if it was true by just the boy's appearance.

Nappa had personally been in charge of deciding whether the children of Saiyan nobles would be classified as elite or super elite. It took a keen eye for talent; you had to spot the definitive killers edge, the drive to be the best that separated a powerful warrior, from a true Saiyan elite. Usually he went with his gut in those situations, and more often than not he was proven correct.

Raditz was nearly shaking with rage he was nearing his limit on the constant insults the last of his race constantly threw his way, Vegeta cut him off before he could respond though. "We should investigate further before we rush to any sort of decision on this Nappa, a child of that level of strength could be incredibly useful to our team." He said careful not to reveal what the plans were, all 3 of them had discussed them at great length when they were certain none of Frieza's spies would be able to hear them.

"So what was the power level of the traitor?" Vegeta asked even though he remembered full well what the reading had said, he had mostly lost interest in recruiting the low level after Raditz mentioned it, He figured Raditz would do something stupid like bring the weak child all the way back to them. But if there was a chance the boy was actually that powerful already, the least he could do is investigate it further, at Raditz's expense.

Raditz was caught off guard by the question and fumbled his words for a moment before answering, "Well… um it was… uh…. around 430." he finally responded.

Vegeta smirked, "So your brother had a power level of barely over 400, you have a power level of 1200 on top of this both your parents were low levels, not stacking up so good for this boy being a super elite so far." Vegeta said each statement a thinly veiled, vicious attack, not only on Raditz but on his entire lineage. Vegeta's disdain for low-levels was something he never bothered to hide, and usually made efforts to point out, especially when dealing with Raditz.

Raditz began to snarl with rage, "My father was a powerful warrior, maybe the strongest on the entire planet even" he growled out his voice barely above a whisper.

"What was that 3rd class?" Vegeta asked a dark smirk on his face daring his favorite victim to repeat his last statement.

Raditz realized his mistake and tried corrected it when he next spoke, hoping Vegeta was feeling forgiving, he rarely was. "I said my father was a powerful warrior, my prince." he said with a bow. When the blow didn't come while he was knelt down, Raditz realized it was in fact his lucky day, or Vegeta was at least interested enough to stay his punishment for a moment more.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah you always talk about how strong of a fighter you dad was, and maybe he was compared to the rest of the trash you grew up with, but he was still nothing compared to the Saiyan elite, let alone to the super elite" Nappa said re-joining the conversation, his gut failing to tell him anything other than the boy was a deep sleeper, which made it obvious he had either yet to make his first kill, or had already killed with such proficiency that it had become second nature to him.

Raditz's attention turned from Vegeta to the Saiyan general shaking in rage once more, before he could speak though, a small voice rang out, "Huh? Where am I?" the boy said rubbing his still sleepy eyes as he looked up very confused, that he was under some strange man's arm.

"Ah good the boy is finally awake." Vegeta said his smirk growing into a full-fledged smile, the boy looked up at the men all around him, all staring expectantly, and began to whimper in fear. "Where's my daddy? I want my daddy." tears were forming in the child's eyes.

Raditz set the crying child down and glared at him, furious at the child for embarrassing him further in the eyes of his superiors, as if they didn't treat him with enough contempt as it was.

Nappa was nearly sick at the sight of one of the last of their race whimpering, he immediately decided his former theory was the correct one instead of the later, the boy was definitely not stacking up to super elite material, or even elite material at the moment.

Vegeta simply gave Raditz a look of amusement, he was about to test Raditz's claim that the boy got stronger when he was angry, "Ha, calling for your daddy like a scare weakling, what sort of Saiyan are you, apparently your father wasn't just a traitor to our race, and a sniveling weakling, but also a failure as a father on top of it. You should be glad your uncle over there killed him when he did." Vegeta sneered, attacking both the boy's Saiyan pride, if he had any, and stabbing at what should still be a raw emotional wound.

Gohan's eyes widened in shock as the memories came flooding back, he remembered his father yelling and fighting and then there was a blast followed by a yell that sounded like his dad, and then silence. The next thing he remembered was sitting on the ground dazed, in front of the scary man who had taken him from his dad. Then being pulled into the scary machine again only with the scary man this time, everything went dark shortly after that as a weird hissing sound had filled the ship.

The new scary man's words continued to echo in his head over and over again as the seconds stretched by, finally they began to sink in, the man who had kidnapped him, had actually beaten his daddy, only from what the man said something worse than beating him must have happened.

"Daddy no" the boy whispered as sadness, pain and nausea mixed together in the depths of his bowels, forming a sickening sea of grief, that seemed to swell through his body. His young, innocent mind rapt in shock with the image of his father squished, bloods dripping from his broken body, legs still twitching. It was a horrific, scaring image dragged up from the darker depths of his imagination, showing his father suffering the same fate as the only creatures he had ever seen anything die, the beetles he would occasionally step on running around outside.

Gohan's blood began to boil, why did the mean man have to show up hurt his daddy, and take him from his mommy, it wasn't fair. The rage built like an all-consuming fire, feeding not only on the boy's current state of mind, but on the emotional pain that had filled him.

All 3 scouters in the room had closely been monitoring the boy for any signs the boy had been hiding his strength and all began to beep in alarm as the boys power burst forth as a glowing aura around him, and continued to rise, the boys angst filled screams shaking the room.

'1200, 1400, 1500, I suppose Raditz was telling the truth, this is impressive' Vegeta thought a smirk on his face as the boy's power kept rising.

Nappa jaw just hung agape in surprise at the rapid increase in the boy's strength. Finally it leveled off just above 2000. Tears were streaming down the child's rage contorted face as he took a step towards Raditz.

Vegeta was truly impressed, if he had estimated the boy's age correctly, he was stronger than all but seven Saiyan's his age in the last five generation, Vegeta himself being one of the seven. As a boy Vegeta was obsessed with separating himself as far as possible from the others on the list of honor.

A dark smile appeared on his face as he realized how the next few seconds would play out; he was really going to enjoy this.

Gohan took a step forward hate burning in his eyes as he stared down his father's killer. Raditz stared back suddenly feeling like a lamb sent to the wolves, the boys killing intent was impossible to miss, it radiated off of him as brightly as the aura that had just moment ago.

"You!... YOU! Meanie!" the boy shouted before launching himself so fast Raditz's eyes couldn't follow him, in an instant the boy had crossed the few feet separating them, burying his head in Raditz's chest. His head colliding right in the same spot he had hit 4 months prior, shattering the Saiyan warrior's newly healed ribs.

Raditz staggered back unable to breath, the blow hitting many times harder than the last one the boy had delivered. He tried to let out a yell of pain, but could barely manage an airless yelp. The pain intensified with each breath he attempted, desperate to recapture his lost air.

Gohan landed barely a foot in front of his uncle, his head throbbing, he ignored the pain this time, his anger demanded he continue his assault on the man who had sent his happy, young life into a tail spin.

Raditz managed to use his forearm to block the boy's next attack aimed at his temple, but the boy simply wrapped his tail around his arm and, allowed his body to drop, building up momentum before delivering a two legged kick back to his uncle's ribs.

Raditz's world was spinning, every cough causing blood to pour from his mouth, his right lung searing with pain from the pieces of shattered rib that had turned the organ into Swiss cheese, during his nephew's latest attack on the damaged bones.

His arms wrapped around his chest, completely blinded by pain, forgetting his tormentor was still on the attack. A powerful right hook to the head reminded him of that fact.

Viciously Gohan continued his assault on his uncle, his tiny fists colliding repeatedly with Raditz's face before finally a powerful somersaulting kick set the fully grown Saiyan hurtling into the triple reinforced wall of the room, putting a massive dent in it.

Even after the large man had slumped to the floor, Gohan still wasn't satisfied with the punishment he had dealt out. He rushed over and jumped onto the man's indented chest to beat his limp form.

Nappa had literally fallen over unable to breath because he was laughing so hard, the boy had completely proven him wrong and he didn't even care; the show he was putting on was more than worth his instincts failing him once in a while.

Even Vegeta was chuckling at the display, had the boy been anything other than a Saiyan, the beating he was giving Raditz would be an insult to the entire Saiyan race, but since the boy was part Saiyan himself, it was quite entertaining for the prince.

Finally Vegeta realized if he allowed the child to continue much longer he would be back to just 2 servants, so he decided it was time to interrupt the family affair.

In a blur he crossed the room and lifted the boy by his tail. "That's enough for now boy, I'll accept you beating the low level, but only I, the prince have the right to kill him."

Gohan could only stare up at him completely stunned by the pain radiating from his tail; he hadn't even noticed the other man coming until he had already grasped his tail.

Vegeta set the boy down to see if he would openly defy him. Gohan felt completely emotionally and physically drained by the last few minutes, so he just plopped on the ground, and stared at his uncle's body, the memories of his outburst replaying in his head. 'Did I really do that?' It was a completely shocking thought that he could hurt such a big man, especially one apparently stronger than his… father. The sadness began to fill the void left by the anger once more.

Nappa had finally stopped laughing, and had to wipe the last tears of laughter from his eyes he hadn't laughed that hard since before the day he learned of planet Vegeta's destruction.

The giant then crossed the room, in only four massive steps, and reached down to patted the child on the back, nearly knocking small boy over "Good job kid, I like your temper. Just like a true Saiyan, obvious whatever weak race your dad bred into had weak enough genes to not mess with you temperament. I think we can chalk your whimpering earlier to being spoiled on such a weak planet, on the inside you have the makings of a true Saiyan warrior" Nappa said giving Gohan what in his eyes was the highest praise.

Gohan just stared up at the giant, who, although he was the largest man he had ever seen, was the only one who had talked nicely to him since he had been taken by his mean uncle who… who killed his father. Tears began to bead in the corners of his eyes, the sadness that had been slowly building with each thought of his father began to overtake him again when Nappa's voice boomed out, "Kid I just gave you a compliment, don't make me regret it."

"Nappa stop blubbering with the child and take the third class to the healing pods before he bleeds to death. Grab a cleaning droid on your way back, oh and take the runt with you I need to think." Vegeta ordered, he needed silence to scheme on how to best use their little group's newest addition.

"Alright Vegeta, come on kid." Nappa said before hoisting the limp body of Raditz to its usual spot on his shoulder, trips to the med-bay were a common occurrence for weaklings with as hot of tempers as Raditz.

Gohan sniffed a few times, but was able to get himself back under control, while they were walking "Sorry, I'm just miss my mommy and my daddy." Gohan said eyes dropped to the ground the sadness thick in his voice.

Nappa looked down at the boy, it had been a long time since a Saiyan had died, and even longer since one was grieved so openly. "I'll let you in on an old Saiyan tradition kid." Nappa said before reaching down and ripping off a strip of Gohan's shirt, and soaking it in the blood still occasionally dripping from Raditz's mouth.

"Hey my shir-" Gohan started to protest, before Nappa grabbed the boys arm and tying the blood soaked strip of fabric tightly around the boy's arm.

"There now you can carry with you the same blood that flowed through your father's veins, to remember him by. Not only that but since it is also the blood of his killer, you can wear it to symbolize the revenge you've already managed to attain, blood for blood." Nappa explained, as if these abstract concepts would make perfect sense to the child.

"You're now responsible for living not just for yourself but for your father as well. It's up to you to reclaim your families' tarnished honor. But since your third class uncle has never been anything but an embarrassment to the race and your father was a traitor, you have a lot of making up to do." Nappa continued with a chuckle to himself.

Gohan looked back and forth between the bloody piece of fabric on his arm and the giant before him. "But this isn't my daddy's blood; it's the mean man's." Gohan finally protested after a moment of thinking about it.

Nappa growled, "Dammit boy, are you as stupid as your uncle is useless? Raditz is your father's brother, which means the blood that flows through one is the same as the other!" Nappa shouted before continuing down the hall, his patience with the child's whining beginning to run dry.

"Damn kids, they never know anything." The giant mumbled before handing off his charge to the concerned looking doctors in the medical bay, Gohan following him silently from behind trying to think of a way to get back home.

When the duo returned to the room, Vegeta decided to try and learn more about his newest subject.

"Let's start with the basics I suppose, what name did Kakarot give you." Vegeta asked curious to see if the rogue had given the boy a proper name or if he had decided to completely abandon his race and give his son a native name.

'My name is Gohan." Gohan said, Gohan hesitantly replied wary of the mean bossy man who had grabbed his tail earlier.

"As I thought, your father had completely forsaken his Saiyan pride." Vegeta responded disgusted.

"Boy what did your father teach you about combat?" Nappa cut in, the boys fighting style against Raditz was incredibly raw as if he had no instruction at all.

"My mommy wouldn't let my daddy teach me martial arts." Gohan responded to the nicer, but still scary man.

Vegeta was awestruck, a Saiyan obeying an ordered to not teach their child how to fight; it was one of the most absurd things he had ever heard. "Your father was a Saiyan, what do you mean you mother wouldn't _let_ him teach you combat." Vegeta shouted incredulous.

Gohan cringed slightly, frightened of the man who was shouting at him but answered anyway. "My mommy didn't want me to be a fighter like my daddy; she wanted me to be a scholar so I could go to college to be an orthopedist."

Vegeta shook his head in disbelief, the idea of one of the last of his race being forced to be a 'scholar' seemed like a sick torture to him. "Was your father really so weak a native bossed him around?"

Vegeta had figured Kakarot had rebelled because he had conquered the weakling planet instead of razing it, but the boy seemed to indicate he was too weak to even manage that. Which didn't make any sense either, Kakarot power level of at least 400, a class 1 planet like the boy's home world should've been child's play for even someone as weak as him. That was the whole reason why they sent him there to begin with. Something wasn't adding up.

"My daddy wasn't weak! He was the strongest man on the planet, mommy always said so!" Gohan shouted definitely.

"As he should've been, he was the only Saiyan on the damn planet until you showed up." Nappa grumbled, "That doesn't change the fact that he should've been teaching you the art of war." he continued, irritation at how un-Saiyan the boy's father was turning out to be thick in his voice.

"The fool was lucky Raditz took care of him when he did, had he crossed my path his death would've been much more prolonged and painful for his lack of Saiyan pride." Vegeta growled at the thought of the honor less Saiyan rogue, continuously refusing the mission he had been assigned, frustratingly without even a reasonable explanation for the betrayal.

This was all it took to set Gohan off though, Vegeta's scouter registered the spike in the boys strength right before he launched himself at Vegeta, intending to do to him what he had to his uncle, not even an hour ago.

Things didn't go as planned though, as Vegeta deflected the boy what to his was a simple back-hand to the face. The force of the blow sent Gohan careening across the room straight into the triple reinforced walls.

It took a moment before he could even sit up and even then his head was spinning so bad he thought he was going to be sick.

Vegeta stood over him, his face contorted in a snarl, "Listen closely boy, if you ever raise your fist to your prince again, you won't live to regret it. Do I make myself clear?" Vegeta said his tone leaving no doubt he was more than willing to follow up on the threat.

When Gohan's head stopped spinning enough that he could nod his head without falling back over he did.

"Good, Nappa since the boy's father neglected the boy's education I want you to teach the boy the basics so he doesn't get killed on his first mission." Vegeta said before exiting the room, heading to the mission board to select the groups next batch of minor assignments, to get the boy's feet wet before the class 7 planet Frieza had assigned them for the end of the year, it was first 7 they had ever been assigned, and the first class 6 was nearly a disaster, he needed his team to be well prepared if they hoped to survive it.

"Alright boy you heard Vegeta, let's go." Nappa said a hint of excitement in his voice; it had been decades since he had put a Saiyan through a proper boot camp. Raditz had finished the third class equivalent of basic training just weeks before the planet blew up. His instructor had obviously deserved his early demise based on how useless Raditz had proven himself. Vegeta on the other hand had undergone the training when he could barely walk, and had surpassed Nappa's own strength by the time he was 7. Leaving the Saiyan General without any worthy troops to whip into shape, until now.

Gohan was too dazed to object and wobbly followed the giant outside the complex. Something told him by the way the man was smiling it wasn't going to be a fun experience.

* * *

Raditz had finally made it out of the med bay; He was told he was in surgery for nearly 12 hours rebuilding his shredded lung, before the doctors could even risk putting him in the healing tank. It was now apparently the third night since the last shreds of his honor had been stolen from him.

The rumor around the base was Raditz had messed up his last mission and so he had been punished by Vegeta, that was the story that Raditz prefer they tell, It was better than everyone knowing that a mere child brought him to the brink of death.

There was one positive to the situation, Raditz could feel the additional strength flowing through his body, he felt nearly invincible. There were several scores he knew he now had the strength to settle, but that was in the future, currently he only wanted one thing, to make his nephew suffer.

He stormed down the hall, and slammed the reinforced door open, knocking it off of one of the hinges, "Where the brat!" Raditz shouted as he entered the room.

He immediately noticed the room was deserted, except Vegeta who was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought.

Vegeta barely turned his head and gave him a cold glare, "What was that low level?" Vegeta asked his voice had a dangerous edge to it.

"I… Uh… sorry Vegeta." Raditz said, before bowing and rushing out of the room. 'That was close; I almost got myself killed before I could get my revenge.'

He stood in the hallway for a moment trying to think of the most efficient way to find his weakling brothers child. Then he remembered his scouter, which the child broke, meaning he had to go all the way to armoury on the other side of the base before he could even begin his search.

Luck was on his side though, on his way there a large fight broke out between two rival teams, one group was much stronger than the other, and so most of the team was eliminated with a matter of seconds, leaving a couple of intact scouters there for the taking.

Rearmed, with a slightly bloody scouter, Raditz was now prepared to get his vengeance. He immediately began looking for power levels that matched the boys normal power level of 10, but was surprised to find that there were no matching power levels within the range of the scouter, which was nearly a third of the planet.

Finally he stopped that search and began looking for power levels around 4000, which was where Nappa normally kept his strength at. He returned 4 readings near that level, and began his search.

After nearly an hour of searching, and a couple near brushes with death as angry elites confronted him for searching them out, he had finally located Nappa in a ravine about a mile away from the base itself, again luck was on his side as Gohan was standing between Nappa and himself, facing Nappa.

'Finally, you're mine brat.' Raditz thought to himself as he powered up and shot across the landscape at the boy.

* * *

Gohan stood staring down the giant who was teaching him to be a fighter like his daddy was, he had to admit he liked some parts of the training, it was a lot better than the studying his mom always forced on him, such as making light beams or floating, sometimes Nappa would even tell him some of the old Saiyan legends.

On the other hand there were parts of it were scary or painful, and reminded him just how much he wanted to get home.

Unfortunately he realized that he wouldn't be able to return home until he was strong enough to fight the grown men off and escape. As nice as Nappa was sometimes, he could be just as scary as the others, which just made as scary thought of going home all the more appealing.

Just as he began to power up using his anger as Mr. Nappa had taught him to increase his strength, he kept thinking about the mean man who hurt his dad, It was all he needed to gather his strength. With his aura now swirling around him, he stared at his opponent, imagining he was his uncle and launched himself at the Saiyan general determined to draw blood.

Things didn't go as he planned though, as was usual when he tried to attack Nappa or Vegeta for that matter. Just as he lifted off the ground, his entire body contorted painfully around the leg of a certain, recently healed Saiyan, sending the child rocketing into the ravine wall.

Nappa was furious, not only was the boys training going to be delayed again for him to take another bath in a healing pod, but Raditz a supposed Saiyan warrior had to resort to ambushes to defeat a child.

"Raditz yo-" Nappa started to growl, when an anger filled shout interrupted him, Nappa's anger quickly turned into pride as the boy had apparently gotten strong enough that such a blow wouldn't keep him down for long.

Gohan's head was throbbing and for a second he didn't know what had happened, but he landed upside down, his face looking back in the direction he had come. That was when he saw him, the man who had killed his father.

Gohan's fury boiled over once more; unable to contain himself he let out an anger filled shout, shaking the ground all around them.

Raditz immediately knew he was in trouble, the boy's power level which had started around 60 this time was soaring up past 2000 and was still climbing, not leveling out until nearly 2800.

The two beings stared down one another, Raditz again knew he was far outmatched but his anger still burned white hot, he wasn't about to back down no matter how strong the brat was. He was a Saiyan warrior, the destroyer of civilizations and the conqueror of worlds, one brat wasn't going to get the better of him... a second time.

They launched themselves at one another only to find they were both being restrained, Nappa had grabbed Gohan by his tail just as he launched himself forward, and Vegeta had Raditz pinned in a similar hold.

"Alright that's enough the both of you as much fun as it would be to watch the boy beat your brains out again third class, I have some questions that I want answered first." Vegeta said an amused smirk on his face as he stared down at the helpless low level caught in his grasp.

Raditz could only growl silently at himself as he glared up at his tormentor. His tail had always been an obvious weakness of his and his 'partners' would never teach him how to rid himself of it of the weakness nor how to master his Oozaru transformation for that matter.

Finally he got himself under control well enough to speak "Fine ask your questions so I can beat the child's face in already." He responded and instantly regretted his tone as Vegeta tighten his grip causing a wall of pain to shoot through him. "I'm sorry your majesty please I didn't mean disrespect" Raditz groveled, praying Vegeta would loosen his grip and finally after several more seconds he did.

"You're running out of chances you better get that mouth of yours under control before I have to remove your tongue." Vegeta said with a dark smirk that sent chills down Raditz's spine. "I'll do better Vegeta." Raditz said relief that his ever pending execution had been stayed again evident in his voice.

Gohan just hung there limply much to Nappa's amusement completely unable to move just like most Saiyan children did when their tails were grabbed, back when planet Vegeta was still around mastering you tail meant you were a officially a Saiyan warrior, which was partially why Raditz was always the butt of the joke, he was no better than a giant toddler in some regards.

"Alright so I was about to ask earlier before we were sidetracked, what was the boy's mother's exact power level compared to the average of the planet, other than weaker than his fathers?" Vegeta asked still trying to understand why the boy was so powerful considering father's family tree.

Raditz then realized his mistake he never told Vegeta and Nappa that he had left the rest of the planet alive he had simply figured they had listened to that part also. "I'm not sure what his mother's power level is." He managed to say his mind racing on how his superiors would take this news he was hoping they would be happy that he set up some fun for them.

"What did you end up having to transform to kill the planet full of weaklings?" Nappa yelled before roaring with laughter, Gohan's limp body bouncing around by his tail, his grimacing made it clear he was uncomfortable with what was happening on several levels.

"I don't think that's it at all Nappa" Vegeta said his smirk falling to a frown "he said what her power level is, not was, implying she was still alive." Raditz felt his blood going cold under Vegeta's stare.

"I.. Um... Well you see, you're right she's still alive, most of the planet is actually. I thought we could have some fun there, so I told the green man to rally his planets pitiful defense forces because we'd be back in a year to finish them off, you know, make a game out of it like we usually do on weak planets, maybe even get the brat involved" Raditz knew he was in trouble even now his plan wasn't sounding like such a good idea even to himself, his idiot brother's failure did mean the planet was already 20 years overdue for going on the market.

Vegeta stood there beginning to see red he couldn't believe Raditz's incompetence, all thoughts of the low levels previous good decision was forgotten. "You thought! You thought! No let me tell you something you third class piece of shit, you didn't think, you never think! You were caught up feeling invincible attacking a weak planet instead of being useless like you usually are!" Vegeta couldn't see straight he was seriously considering snapping Raditz's neck right then and there, but he forced himself to push those thought aside, someone was going to get punished by Frieza for Raditz's failure and it sure as hell wasn't going to be him.

Vegeta had to spend another moment trying to calm himself down before he could even continue, "This is what is going to happen, and you better follow my orders to a T, if you slip up at all I will make your death the most painful one I've ever had the pleasure to deliver."

After seeing Raditz gulp and nod he continued "You are going to present the boy to Frieza since we have to get his approval to add members to our squad. When you are done you are to choose an easy mission from the list I signed us up for today, one that not even you can't manage to fail at. I'll spell it out for just to make sure you understand me, a class 1 planet like the boys home world, preferably in the direction of the boy's home to get the kids bloody. If you get done before we've contacted you, chose another similar mission so we can add some more points towards the quota."

After Vegeta did a mental tally of how many points his team had gathered for that year so far and realizing they were pretty far behind, he continued not even realizing he had let go of Raditz's tail, "Damn it were already behind, we need another 15 points to reach the quota, and, the boys home world isn't even going to count towards it."

Using his index finger and thumb to rub the bridge of his nose, fighting off an anger induced headache, "Alright here is what we have to do to avoid a trip to Frieza's torture chamber, While you're doing everything I've already described to you, after you get the boy's feet wet with his first mission, chose a class 2 mission for the boys second, make sure it's a world with a nice large moon though so the boy can get use to transforming. In the meantime Nappa and I will have to hightail it over to that class 2 planet, Arlia that we are scheduled to raze, for them rejecting some treaty with Frieza, then make a pit stop and clean out the boy's home world. When we're done we'll meet up with you two and hopefully still have time to do the Lostea mission. You're lucky we have eleven months left this year, because it'll take us a minimum of 8 months before we can even start making plans for Lostea now" Vegeta finished before turning and started back towards the base. He quickly realized the others still hadn't yet moved.

All three of them simply stared back at Vegeta, trying to figure out what they wanted him to do, or in Gohan's case to beat him senseless and escape.

"Damn it you fools that means move we're under an impossible deadline as it is. Pack up and get the boy to the armory we're leaving NOW!" Vegeta shouted before flying to the flight control center to get the pods ready for launch.

Raditz and Nappa both realized how angry Vegeta was and hurried to get things in order for them to leave, neither wanted to be the last one ready to go, and incite the prince's infamous wrath.

Nappa still carrying Gohan by his tail took off at full speed to the compound's armoury, while Raditz rushed back to the group's room to grab their spare scouters and armour.

When Nappa arrived he found the only armor that would fit the child was designed for Saibamen, and nearly had to vaporize the guard to get him to authorize its release.

After getting the armor on Gohan, who was fighting him every inch of the way because he heard Vegeta saying they were going to attack his home again, he rushed back to the launch pad.

As soon as they arrived Gohan managed to break free of Nappa's grip and launched himself at Vegeta, Vegeta easily caught the child and held him at arms distance as he struggled. "What's the matter with you now kid?" Vegeta asked getting irritated with the child's random outbursts.

"Don't!… Hurt!… My!... Mommy!" as Gohan shouted the last part his power spiked, high, higher than during any of his previous rises, peaking at nearly 3500, creating powerful winds as his aura super charged the air, the force of the winds not only pushed Vegeta and Nappa's pods off the launch pad, but also knocked Raditz, who had just arrived, on his back and sent him sliding across the concrete structure.

Finally when the storm had past Vegeta just stood there stunned, 'Insane his power peaked higher than my fathers was at his age.' a genuine smile appeared on Vegeta's face 'this boy is going to be a very useful asset.'

"I'll make you a deal kid, and only because I'm feeling generous, I will give your mother a quick and painless death, that is the best I can offer you though. In time you might even thank me for it once you understand our way of life. The only thing I want from you in return is your complete and utter loyalty to me."

"NO! Please don't hurt my mommy, I'll do anything." the boy pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

Vegeta stared at the boy, he could understand the boy's position there was a time in which he would've done anything to have his father back, unfortunately the universe was not kind enough to even give him that offer. He had to learn that lesson, and it was time for the boy to also. "Listen boy, I don't want to kill your mother but I have to, Frieza orders us to wipe out a planet and that's what we have to do. Do you know why?"

When Gohan shook his head Vegeta continued, "We have to because currently Frieza is currently the most powerful being the universe, which means he's in charge. If you want to be the one to decide who lives and who dies, you only have one option, become as strong as possible, without strength anything you love can be taken from you at any moment." Vegeta tried to his best to explain things in a way the child would understand. He couldn't care less about killing a bunch of weaklings like were on the boy's planet, he wanted to fight stronger opponents and achieve his destiny, instead he was stuck on cleanup duty.

Gohan looked at Vegeta, part of what the man had said made sense, it sounded like something his father had told him about fighting to protect those you loved, but he still didn't understand why the man had to kill his mother, was it really only because he was weaker than Vegeta, or the Freezer guy, was that really the reason his mother would die.

Vegeta sighed and tossed his scouter to Nappa so what he said next couldn't be heard by any curious ears. "We're your family now… Gohan, your old life is gone. You're a Saiyan warrior like the rest of us; your only mission in life is to help us become strong enough to defeat Frieza once and for all. At that point we can make the rules, instead of having to follow them." Vegeta said before delivering a powerful blow to Gohan's stomach. All the sappy bullshit he just spew almost made Vegeta hurl. He at the very least hoped his lies would be enough to convince the boy to willingly serve him, it would be better than forced servitude, he needed allies not enemies.

Gohan's eyes rolled into the back of his head, as his body went limp. Vegeta then casually tossed him to his uncle who was just getting back on his feet, "get the boy strapped in and launch." Vegeta said before righting his pod and preparing for launch.

He and Nappa were already shooting through the atmosphere before Raditz had even finished strapping the boy in, slaving the pods together, and getting in his own pod.

His last thoughts as he drifted off into the hibernation were of fear; he had never gone before Frieza alone before, 'That brat better be on his best behavior when we arrive, for both of our sakes."

**And Chapter 5 comes to a close. This chapter like a couple other chapters started out much shorter the first time I had written it and over the course of the editing it almost doubled in size. I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has been following the story so far. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks about it, or any concerns you might have about the story. One last note before the reviews section a big shout out to everyone who has submitted a review so far, some of your questions have led me to notice plot holes in my rough draft, so keep up the good work.**

**Now onto the reviews:**

**enlyasurgeon: That's what I was thinking, I felt a lot of solid fighters from Dragon Ball were either completely ignored (Nam, King Chappa, Bora), or their characters transformed in such a way that they became more annoying or useless than entertaining or useful, (Chi Chi, Master Roshi, later Chaotzu etc). My plan is to have chapters showing what is going on with several different groups throughout the story, It just happened that I needed the first few chapters to lay the ground work on the changes to how the Z-fighters were preparing. Expect more Gohan related chapters in the future, I'm going to try and keep things as chronological as possible.**

**super mystic gohan: Piccolo is going to put everyone through the ringer, The dynamic between everyone in that group is going to be really interesting to balance between old enemies stuck in a close vicinity for a long period of time. Also no problem on the spelling, I'm not the best speller myself.  
**

**Bob-dude17: Thanks for the review, glad your liking it so far, I'm curious about the 1000 word curse you mentioned, by that do you mean you're glad I'm not doing little 1000 word chapters, or that I don't limit myself to one set length for each chapter? **

**Thanks for the suggestion on the structure, your right it does flow better that way. I try to break up the blocks as it is but sometimes I do my editing a little too late at night and miss that kind of stuff. That being said that's something I'm going to try and do a better job of in the future. I sort of have a beta right now my cousin who I work closely with on Vegeta the academic helps me read sections I'm less sure about, unfortunately he's working on developing a few stories of his own at the moment so he can't always read my chapters before I want to post them. **

**Hopefully between my additional diligence an the fact I'm taking my first English class since senior year of high school I can improve on that.**


	6. Chapter 6: The Demon Schools First Class

Chapter 6: The Demon School's First Class

Back on Earth 2 months later (6 months after Goku's death)

Piccolo had spent the last 6 months doubling down his training, he wasn't just trying to overtake Goku anymore he now knew that there were warriors out there that made him feel utterly powerless, something he was determined he would never feel again.

Since he didn't have to eat like most being, or sleep much he was able to train himself nearly constantly, fighting his duplicates, lifting mountains with his ki, along with hours of meditation.

Soon though, he would be done with this portion of his training and will have to begin splitting his focus between himself and improving his future support team.

A smirk crossed his face, he had been keeping track of their gains; they were impressive but still far behind himself, which is exactly where he wanted them. Strong enough to help in the fight but still weak enough that they were no threat to himself, after the temporary alliance dissolved and his reign as supreme ruler of Earth began.

Every time he thought about this fact he couldn't help but smirk. Just three more day until he was ready to take the next step along the path of achieving his destiny.

* * *

At the lookout the Guardian of Earth and his grounds keeper had also been hard at work training the top class of the Earth's defenders in an attempt to close the gap that currently existed between themselves and Kami's other half, in case Piccolo reverted to his old ways after the battle against the Saiyans

Piccolo would be taking over training in a matter of days, up until now though the gap had only grown, despite Kami and Mr. Popo's best efforts. Regardless all 5 of the warriors had grown powerful; all of them were much more powerful than Goku and Piccolo were during the battle against Raditz.

* * *

It had been 6 months since Goku death, and now there were half a dozen different groups preparing for the upcoming battle for the fate of the Earth.

But over the next few days several of the groups would be undertaking a several massive shifts. Master Roshi had taught his students all he could. During that same time he had pushed himself to levels he had only seen Goku and Piccolo surpass.

Chi Chi, King Chappa, Nam, and Bora were all nipping right at his heels, there had been periods of time when both Chi Chi and Chappa had surpassed him, but that only inspired him redouble his own efforts. He still spent most of the last six months as the strongest fighter on the island.

The five members of the Blue force had all progressed far also, most of them would've been able to give Krillin or Yamcha a good fight during the 21st world martial arts tournament, and the Captain had progressed far enough that he just might have won it.

He honestly couldn't believe how far they had all come in just 6 months, he was incredibly proud of them all. But none more so than Chi Chi, 'Goku sure knew how to pick a woman, she was smart, beautiful, and she had almost caught all the way up with his old master in terms of strength.' He liked to think he was partially responsible for his ex-students good luck with women, all evidence to the contrary.

"Alright everyone please gather around and listen up." Master Roshi announced as he stared out over his students, most of who were in the process of stretching for the usual daily run, all already wearing the heaviest turtle shells he could find for them.

He cleared his throat before he began speaking again. "You have all made incredible strides these last 6 months, and although none of us are currently where we need to be to fight the upcoming threat, we've made good progress so far. Unfortunately I have nothing left to teach any of you, so after one final test my time as your teacher will have come to an end." Master Roshi noticed a few of his students were surprised by this statement, mostly the Blue Force who were so far behind compared to the others, each felt they had a lot left to learn.

"I will be continuing training with you though, as a fellow student with our next two masters. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your hard work and to let you know I am proud to have you all were the insignia of the turtle school. Oh I nearly forgot, excuse me a moment." Master Roshi said cursing his forgetfulness as he hurried back over the house.

Leaving his students began to murmur to each other, trying to figure out what their Master had forgotten this time.

The Turtle Hermit emerged a moment later with a large bag, "Here you go everyone." He said before passing out orange gi all with the turtle school insignia on the back, and a miniature one on the front.

Everyone, even the Blue force who gradually had a change of heart about Master Roshi and the training in general, were proud to wear the insignia of the turtle school. They had all learned so much not just about martial arts but about the world as a whole over the last 6 months.

After giving them a moment to change while he capsulate his house, it was time to go.

"Alright everyone follow me." He said before jogging a short distance to the edge of the island and into the ocean, swimming at speeds that would put most speedboats to shame.

Everyone else jumped in and did their best to keep up. They didn't know where they were swimming to but if it was Master Roshi's final test they knew it was going to be tough.

They swam for nearly 3 hours before land was finally in sight, when they landed everyone

Could already feel that they were warmed up. As the last few stragglers made it to shore Master Roshi had everyone gather up once more.

As the last few gathered up, Chi Chi realized just how close to her childhood home of Fire Mountain she actually was, she had actually been to this beach before many years ago, shortly after meeting Goku for the first time.

Her reminiscing was cut short through when Master Roshi began to talk once more. "We will have a bit of a run from here on out so, everyone keep your eye's peeled for any streams we can get a drink from, I guarantee we will be thirsty before too long." With the warning delivered Master Roshi began to run straight towards some distant mountains.

Everyone else fell in behind him, the usual rivalries pushing each other, King Chappa and Chi Chi were right on his heels, while Nam and Bora fought for 4th place. Behind them was Captain Meditrain stuck in limbo between two large clumps of his comrades with the rest of the Blue Force in a group bringing up the rear.

Things were pretty easy going at first; it was just like an extended one of their morning jogs, even though they were all moving fast enough that if any normal person saw them, the whole group would be one big blur, like a bullet train in the distance.

Once they reached the mountains though things began to slow down. Everyone's ki reserves were vanishing fast under a combined assault of the steep upward slopes and the rapidly thinning air. It soon became evident that keeping up such a pace would be nearly impossible for the weaker students and so the distance between the groups grew.

Finally they came across a small valley with a stream running down the middle, from the melting snow. Everyone gathered around and greedily drank from the cold, crisp water, none of them realizing the valley was occupied.

The being watched the group from the shadows at the far end of the valley; he had kept a close eye on the group of travelers as they marched their way through _his_ mountains. 'So the old man decided to re-start his training also, interesting, he seems to have more students than before. Now the only question is what are they doing here, I suppose I should go and ask." A dark smile etched its way across his face as he made plans to entertain his unexpected guests, or more specifically for them to entertain him.

He continued to float for a moment before; vanishing from view, moving faster than anyone present could've hoped to see.

Master Roshi sensed something was wrong right before a series of blasts detonated around the group forming a complete circle, the smoke billowing up obscuring their vision

Everyone dropped into their defensive stances, forming a rough circle boxed in by the blasts, searching the smoke for any sign as to what had just happened.

Master Roshi was the only one capable of reaching out with a 6th sense with a high degree of accuracy still, and what it told him cause him great alarm, but before he could sound the alarm, a gruff voice rang out, confirming his suspicions, and making his blood run cold.

"What are you doing here old man?" The being whose identity was still a mystery to everyone except Master Roshi, asked.

Everyone immediately turned to their master hoping for an explanation.

Master Roshi was just visibly shaking, "Piccolo." was all he managed to say, his mind was racing, why was he here, had they accidentally stumbled upon the son of the Demon King's home, or had he searched them out specifically for some reason.

The green being floated through the clearing smoke and set down just feet in front of the group. Fear began to ripple through the group everyone present had either experience the horror of the first demon king first hand, or had heard about his horrors in great detail. Some even had experience with the more powerful, reincarnated version standing before them.

"I'm going to ask you one last time, why are you here." Piccolo asked making sure the put a healthy dose of irritation in his voice.

This finally brought the turtle hermit out of his stupor, "I'm sorry, we didn't mean to disturb you, we'll just be goi-"

He was interrupted when Piccolo appeared just inches from his face, to everyone's surprise they hadn't even seen him move, apparently Master Roshi hadn't either because he visibly flinched when his interrogator appeared so close to him.

"You still haven't answered my question, am I going to have to beat the answer out of you and your students?" He asked an evil smile on his face.

"We… we... we're going to train with Kami." Master Roshi managed to stutter out.

Piccolo just looked at them with sudden disinterest, "Fine, maybe the old man can make you into decent cannon fodder before the Saiyan's arrive, remind the real fighters I'll be there to pick up the them in 3 days, no sooner and no later." He turned and started to float away before a loud annoying sound bombarded his hyper-sensitive hearing.

"EXCUSE ME!" Chi Chi shouted, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE REAL FIGHTERS? I"M GOING TO BE THE ONE TEACHING GOKU"S IN LAWS SOME MANNERS, APPARENTLY YOU COULD USE SOME TOO!" she continued, her voice so painfully loud Piccolo was completely stunned, unable to block the flying kick the woman launched his way.

Chi Chi's leg collided with his stomach, but she immediately came to a complete stop, her attack failing to even budge the now furious warrior.

Piccolo's hand shot out before Chi Chi could even fall back to the ground and wrapped tightly around her throat, his icy glare causing her to actually regret her attack, she hadn't realized there was such a gap in strength until that moment.

The color had completely drained from Master Roshi's face, Chi Chi's temper had finally gone and picked a fight she didn't have a hope of winning.

"You dare assault my ears with that racket, I am Piccolo, the demon king reincarnated, destined ruler of this world." he shouted, as Chi Chi's face began to go blue from the lack of oxygen.

'Kame help us all.' Master Roshi silently prayed before attempting to intervene himself.

"Piccolo please let her go, she's sorry for her outburst; she just has a bit of an anger issue. We need her to help us fight the Saiyan's." Master Roshi pleaded hoping the strongest being currently on the planet would listen to his reason.

"Need her, I don't need a weaklin-" Piccolo started to say before an even more annoying being than the ones he was talking to, interrupted him, in his head.

"Let her go Piccolo." Kami demanded, his voice as stern as he could manage from thousands of miles away.

"And if I don't what are you going to do about it old man, I've been way out of your league since the day I was born!" Piccolo shouted with the defiance of an angry teenager at an overprotective parent.

"There is no reason to harm her, she has a great deal of potential and will help against the Saiyan's I am sure of this. You felt it yourself, her power spiked with her anger right before she attacked, much higher than it normally is." Kami urged, trying to talk sense into his evil alter ego.

Master Roshi wasn't sure if Piccolo was talking to him or what, he seemed to have completely snapped.

"What the hell do you know! I'm standing her choking her, she doesn't seem very useful to me" Piccolo growled, sending the harshest glare he could to the north east, though on the inside he had to admit he did feel the spike in her strength, when it peaked she was much stronger than any of the other weaklings standing before him.

"Just do it Piccolo, I promise you won't regret it." Kame continued his attempts to calm his evil side.

"Fine, I'll spare the weakling... for now, it's not like she's a threat to me anyway, but if she ever makes that noise again I'll rip her tongue out myself." Piccolo grumbled, annoyed at his other half's interference. Before dropping the barely conscience Chi Chi to the ground.

"All of you, out of my valley now!" Piccolo shouted before shooting up and out of the valley himself, needing to find something nice and big to blow up to relieve some steam, and hopefully get rid of the ringing in his ears.

Master Roshi was stunned, apparently Kami had intervened and had actually convinced Piccolo to let Chi Chi go, he couldn't thank the Earth's guardian enough for his help, he probably just saved all of their lives.

"You heard the man everyone, let's get a move on." Master Roshi shouted as he picked the still shaken Chi Chi and began to sprint away from the valley as fast as he could.

They didn't stop running until they had made it to a small mountain village, along the way they heard a series of gargantuan explosions that seemed to shake the entire planet, far in the direction Piccolo had gone.

"Alright gang, I think we all could use a break following that incident, let's take a while to rest up before we finish the test." Master Roshi said, still visibly disturbed by the day's events.

A couple hours later the mystery of the explosions in the distance had been solved.

'Piccolo might be preparing to fight the same invaders we are, but he definitely not on our side.' the turtle hermit brooded to himself as he watched the television with everyone else, the whole town had gathered around the local bar's TV to watch the news coverage on the massive craters that appeared where mountains once stood and raging wildfires that had sprouted up following the string of explosions.

The light from the fires could be seen far off to the west, its light adding an eerie glow to the sky as the smoke rose battled the fading light of the setting sun.

When a local farmer made a comment about the sky looking like a battle between heaven and hell, Master Roshi almost chuckled at irony of the man's statement, for that was basically what it was, the result of an argument between the guardian of Earth and the king of the demons.

Chi Chi stayed absolutely silent through the entire time they were in the village, her eye's burned with a fire that intimidated anyone who made the mistake of getting too close to her.

She didn't want to be disturbed, the bruise from Piccolo's grip was beginning to cause swelling all around her jawline, and served as a painful, constant reminder of how weak she actually was compared to her husband, and the monster he had fought all those years ago.

'Oh Goku, how could anyone beat you, you put the rest of us to shame, I need you here now. You're the only one who can help me get our son back.' She silently reached out to her dead husband, hoping that by some miracle he could hear her all the way in otherworld.

Suddenly a familiar voice rang out in her head "Hey Chi, don't worry, I'll make it back in time to help get Gohan back.", or was it in her head, everyone in the group flinched as if they had heard it too.

"Goku is that you!" Chi Chi asked looking up to the air disbelief washing over her, she didn't even notice the pain that talking was causing as her muscles fought the swelling. She really hoped this wasn't some sort of hallucination from oxygen depletion.

"Yeah it's me, I've been following your training closely with King Kai's help, you've grown a lot stronger Chi, all of you have actually; I'm impressed." Goku said his voice as carefree as she remembered.

"Goku it is good to hear from you again my friend." Nam suddenly hollered up to the sky like Chi Chi had, excited to speak to the Earth's greatest hero once more.

The local townspeople began to get nervous that a group of insane asylum patients might have escaped and were now gathered in their village.

"Oh hey Nam, long time no see, how's your village doi-" Goku started to ask before a new nasally voice interrupted him. "Hey I'm not just a phone for you to use whenever you want to catch up with old friends you know."

"Oh sorry King Kai, I just got caught up with seeing everyone and forgot you were here." Goku responded sounding truly remorseful, like a small child caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

"Its fine, but we have to get back to training if you want to be strong enough to beat those Saiyan's you know." King Kai responded inwardly getting irritated at his newest student's lack of an attention span.

"Oh yeah, Ok guys I have to go but l I'll see you guys in about six months, keep up the good work, from what King Kai's been telling me we're going to need all of us working together to even have a chance against these guys." The ever jovial disembodied voice of Goku said before, fading to silence.

"I will Goku." Chi Chi whispered almost silently to herself, as tears began to dip slowly from her eyes, a fire renewed in the pit of her stomach, she wasn't going to let one run in with a green demon derail her from her mission, she would not give up, ever.

The conversation with Goku was all the turtle students needed to hear. Even the Blue Force who had had only heard stories of the legendary Goku, felt a sense of awe that a man was able to communicate with them from the dead, and pride that the previous strongest man on the planet was impressed with their progress.

"Well you heard Goku we need to get moving." Master Roshi suddenly shouted as everyone jumped up revitalized to continue the run.

They had passed lights of a large city could be seen in the distance, "Come on folks, were already 2/3rds of the way there." Master Roshi said trying to encourage his students, even though he was wearing out himself, sometime deep in the night, but they chugged on continuing their run all the way through the night.

As they got closer, and started to see the billboards around the suburbs of the city, they found out they were actually passing West City which gave at least one of the runners a good idea on where Master Roshi was leading them and what the true final test would be.

Bora couldn't help but smile at thought, 'It will be nice to finally reach the top of the tower' his strength had grown immensely over the last few months he was utterly confident in his ability to accomplish what he had fail at as a boy, 'I'll finally meet the sacred guardian of the tower.'

These thoughts pushed him onwards even as some of the more powerful of the group began to slow down, only to speed up once more when they noticed him passing them. The competition between the students was a strong as ever, even though they were all on the same side.

Finally after nearly 3 more hours of continuous running, they had arrived, everyone except Bora and Master Roshi stared up in awe at the tower, slowing from what would be a jog for them, to a speed that most normal people could manage, albeit with some difficulty.

No one could believe how there was a tower this large, it seemed to stretch upward forever, shining brightly as the first rays of sunlight shot over the horizon.

As they got closer to the base they could see the glowing embers of a campfire in the distance. Bora began to smile he was right, not only that but it looked as if he'd get to see his son for a moment before he began his climb.

After a couple more seconds they were there, his son was standing there spear in hand on high alert as a large group of people were running towards his home so early in the morning. His features relaxed visibly when he noticed Master Roshi and his own father were 2 of the first 5 to emerge.

"Father! It's good to see you, what are you all doing here?" Upa greeted a large smile on his face at the pleasant surprise of seeing his father again, much sooner than expected.

"I can only guess my son, but it appears we will be climbing the tower of Korin soon, to receive the sacred water, like Goku did." A small smile appeared on his face as he thought about how close he was to achieving his childhood dream.

"Have you been well my son?" Bora asked, mentally reprimanding himself for being more excited about the climb than the chance he was being given to see his son again so soon.

"Yes father, things have been incredibly quiet these last few months, It get sort of lonely out here all alone, but when I remember you lived out alone for years before mom came to us It makes it easier to bare." Upa responded.

Master Roshi cut in, "I couldn't help but overhear, from what I can tell you have done a very good job holding down the fort." Master Roshi said giving Upa a thumbs up before turning to his father, "And to answer your earlier question Bora, yes we are climbing the tower, right after a short rest, we still have to make up some time from the run in with Piccolo." Master Roshi responded as he stroked his beard.

Ups spent a good part of the early morning helping gather water and food for the weary defenders of Earth to replenish their strength, the group then proceeded to take a short nap, only 5 hours, before it was time to move again.

"Alright everyone the only way to begin the second part of the training is to climb this tower. It's a very long climb, Bora and I can both attest to that so since we still have to make up some time we might as well get moving again" Master Roshi said as he turned to intending to lead the way on the climb.

He immediately noticed Chi Chi already hundreds of feet up the tower, Master Roshi sweat dropped, 'that woman doesn't stop does she.'

He immediately ran over and began climbing as fast as he could to catch back up with her as she rapidly receded into the distance. Everyone else hurried up the base of the tower to try and catch up.

The difference in the strength of the climbers quickly became evident as Chi Chi, Roshi, Chappa, Bora, and Nam all began to pull away a sizeable lead over the members of the Blue Force, including Captain Meditrain, despite their best efforts.

Chi Chi, Master Roshi and King Chappa all managed to finish the climb first, though Bora and Nam, weren't too far behind all of them had caught up within 10 minutes of each other.

"You've all impressed me again; I didn't expect I would have to race to be the first one to the top." Master Roshi said as he helped Bora and Nam up on the solid footing of Master Korin's home.

"Yes it was a very impressive climb by you all." A gruff voice yelled down from above. "I've only ever seen a couple climbs as fast as yours, it was much faster than your first one Roshi." the mysterious voice continued.

Bora felt his heart beating into his throat, not only had he already accomplished the first step towards his childhood dream by finishing the climb, but the guardian of the tower, the being who has watched over them for many years was now complimenting his climb, meaning the second half of it was now within reach.

He couldn't help himself as he rushed up the stairs to the upper level, determined to finish his childhood dream and meet the legendary being he had heard about his entire life.

Chi Chi charged after him, there was no way in hell she was going to let anyone else get a head start on training. "Come back here. What ever happened to ladies first." she complained.

Master Roshi, looked down and noted that Captain Meditrain who was chugging away as fast as he could was still a ways off, decided he had better hurry after them, not wanting a fight to break out on Master Korin's tower, "settle down Chi Chi." he called, though he knew his pleas would fall on deaf ears.

Nam and King Chappa both just looked at each other before follow the group, nervous about what would happen when the group reached the top.

As Bora and Chi Chi arrived they were shocked to find the only being on the top floor of the Tower was a cat holding a walking stick, "Ah so you finally got interested at what was upstairs did ya?" the Cat said in a deep gravelly voice, stunning both of the martial artists standing there.

Before either had a chance to respond Master Roshi cut in, "It's good to see you again Master Korin, it's been awhile."

"Yes it has, a bit over 300 years if I remember correctly." Korin responded as the four turtle students eyes bulged, they knew Master Roshi was old but not 300 years old.

Master Roshi stroked his beard "Yes, I suppose it has been that long. But I'm afraid there isn't much time to talk; I need to speak to the others training with Kami, so I was wondering if you could give these four the sacred water training while I talk to them."

It was now Korin's turn to stroke the fur on his face as he examined each of the four fighters before him "Nope I won't train them" was his simple response, which caused everyone to fall flat on their backs in shock.

Chi Chi was the first to recover and she was mad, "My son's been kidnapped and his kidnappers are coming back in 6 months to kill us all, what do you mean you won't train us!" she shouted causing the feline martial artist to wince and take a few steps back before responding.

"I wasn't finished I'm not going to train you because it would do you no go-" this time Chi Chi didn't even wait for him to finish in a flash she was on him. Before he could even react she had grabbed him and was now holding him by the tail over the edge of his tower home.

"No good what do you mean no good!" Chi Chi shouted she was on the verge of seeing red. "My babies been kidnapped my husband has been killed and his killers coming to finish the rest of us off and you think training will do us no good!" Her swollen throat giving her a much deeper more menacing sounding voice than she normally had.

Everyone else present was too shocked to even move they hadn't expected the cat's answer, but Chi Chi had apparently snapped.

Korin was actually calm given the situation, he had known how unstable the women was when she arrived, it was one of the perks of reading someone's mind, so he knew it was a possibility she would snap at him at his answer.

He also knew a fall even from this height would not be deadly to him, it would just be painful, he could always hope one of his nimbus could reach him in time but he really didn't want to risk it so he would have to choose his next words carefully.

"Look you didn't let me finish my explanation the training wouldn't do you any good because you're already stronger and faster than me, as you just proved. I'm not fast enough to teach you to anticipate your opponents; that will have to be left to Kami and Mr. Popo I'm afraid."

Chi Chi thought about what the cat said and determined he had given a satisfactory explanation. "Fine" she said as she let go of his tail letting him drop he was barely able to grab onto the edge and pull himself up. Before crossing her arms and turning in a huff. "You should've said so to begin with"

"Sorry about that Master Korin. Now that that's settled guess we're back to my original question of if you could get us a ride to Kami's lookout?" Master Roshi finally asked, nervous his master would be irritated because of Chi Chi's disrespect.

Korin was too intimidated to be angry. He knew all the warriors present had already surpassed himself, but he couldn't even react before Chi Chi had grabbed him, he could hardly even see her movements for that matter.

Korin looked his former pupil in the eye's silently passing along a warning, 'you better not slack off Roshi, if she surpasses you completely she'll be even more of a loose cannon than she already is.'

Master Roshi got the message and nodded ever so slightly to indicate he understood.

Korin then immediately straightened up, and stroked his whiskers for a moment before responding "Kami already knows you're here, he'll send you a way to reach him when he's ready to see you I figure."

As if on cue a new voice rang out, "Hey guys, Kami said you could use a lift." Krillin said as he Yamcha, Tien and Chiaotzu all landed, excited to meet the newest recruits to the z fighters.

"So how'd catching Korin go, you didn't beat our times did ya?" Yamcha asked a confident smile on his face.

Korin was the first to respond to the ex-bandit's question "technically they all have since they're already faster than myself, and would've easily caught me." Much to the more veteran Z-Fighter's shock.

"It's good that you guys have improved so much. Otherwise you guys would be hurting when Kami and Popo got their hands on you." Tien responded only partially joking, as he remembered their time in the pendulum room, and inwardly cringed.

"We'll we better get moving, we still have some more training to do before tomorrow." Krillin said eager to get everyone moving again he was getting close to mastering a new secret technique he had been developing.

Everyone picked out a partner, or in Tien's case two, to be flown up to Kami's lookout when suddenly a new voice rang out. "So... I... guess... you four... are going to be... the main... attack force we've… heard about?" surprised by the new voice everyone immediately turned to see the giant form of Captain Meditrain barely able to support himself on the railing of Korin's home.

"Hmm, you appear to have burnt through most of your reserves catching up." Korin stated bluntly, he was still keeping track of all of his new student's climbing even while taking to the others. He turned around and walked over to a small pot and picked something up. He then tossed it to Meditrain, "Here catch!" the cat yelled.

Meditrain barely managed to reach his hand up in time to catch the small object, "A bean?" he asked confused, most of the newcomers were equally confused, while the veteran fighters inwardly smiled curious to see how this new fighter would react to the beans magical properties.

"Eat it." was all Korin said in response to the question. Captain Meditrain looked to Master Roshi for approval; he still wasn't very trusting of strangers. When Roshi nodded in response, he ate it. He was instantly glad he had, all the exhaustion that had been weighing him down instantly evaporated, and he felt even stronger than before, probably from the running and climbing he had done the last few days.

"Wow!" The giant's voice boomed, "I feel great, this is amazing, I bet I could take the damn Saiyan's myself now!" he shouted as he punched out at the air, at speeds which to him were impressive, but were merely in slow motion to the original fighters.

"You could probably use one too, here." Korin hollered at Chi Chi who immediately caught the bean and ate it up, her face returning to its normal shape and color.

Chi Chi just offered a simple "thanks." she was still irritated the cat didn't explain himself clearer the first time he had spoken to her.

"So while we were at the foot of the tower I heard something about sacred water that is supposed to make you stronger, have all of you all already had it?" Meditrain asked sincerely interested in the supposed magical liquid, if the bean was anything to go off of.

Master Roshi and Korin exchange a near instantaneous look, Korin was silent for a fraction of a second, not enough to be noticed by anyone as anything unusual, as he appraised the man standing before him, "Yes they already have the strength of someone who's had the sacred water." Korin responded, not lying but not telling the whole truth either, Master Roshi gave the other students a look instructing them to stay quiet for the time being.

"Great where is it?" Meditrain asked ready to move onto the next part of his training, with the others, who were already outnumbering their rides.

"We'll be going now, see you later Meditrain." Master Roshi suddenly announced indicating to the others it was time to go.

Meditrain was momentarily confused but summed up the others leaving to mean there being not enough people to carrying him to this Kami's lookout he had heard so much about, and that his ride would come back when the others arrived and had the water also.

After they had left Korin turned to his newest student expectantly, "The water's behind you go ahead and have a drink." he invited, preparing himself for his favorite part of having 'guests'.

"Ok, thanks." Meditrain responded as he walked over to the bottle and reached out to grab it; suddenly the cat jumped in front of him and grabbed it.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" Meditrain shouted insulted that the cat was foolish enough to deny him the magical liquid that he had given his allies, and also determined not to let the gap in strength grow any further.

"You can have a drink of the sacred water if you can catch me." the cat responded with a wry grin.

"Fine if you want to play it that way no problem!" he shouted before lunging expecting to catch his feline adversary off guard, only to miss badly and land face first on the floor.

"You're going to have to do better than that." Korin taunted, which immediately caused the Captain to jump up and continue the chase.

* * *

As soon as everyone arrived, they were greeted by Kami and Popo, "Welcome everyone; we will begin training in the morning, until then why don't you all do some light training with one another to see how everyone stacks up." Kami said before walking back into the main dome of the lookout.

Chi Chi was about to object and force the training begin immediately, but was held back by the combined efforts of Master Roshi and Krillin.

As soon as Kami had faded from view, Master Roshi released Chi Chi and turned to the two crane students who we're currently talking to King Chappa. "Tien, Chiaotzu I have a favor to ask you. Would you teach us how to fly?"

Tien and Chiaotzu looked over at the Turtle hermit, "Sure no problem, it'll probably come in handy during the fight anyway." Tien responded more than happy to teach his mentor.

"Hey what about me!" Yajirobe cut in, "I've been training with you guys for almost 6 months and no one taught me to fly." the overweight samurai complained.

"Well, you never asked." Chiaotzu said glaring at Yajirobe for his accusatory tone.

Tien cut in before it could escalate though, "Hey it's no problem we can teach you too."

The rest of evening was spent teaching the ancient crane school secret of levitation.

* * *

It was a peaceful night on top of Kami's tower, the stars were brighter than any of the newcomers had ever seen before, in addition the air was at the perfect temperature, so everyone easily drifted off to sleep.

Everyone was awoken, just a few hours into the near perfect slumber, by the sounds of explosions detonating all around them.

All the fighters jumped up, searching their surroundings for the source of the explosions.

"Enough of the games Piccolo." Kami's wizened voice rang out as the guardian of the Earth exited his dwelling, an irritated look on his face about the damage his other half had caused.

"Just getting my students up for their first day of training, old man." Piccolo's deep, rough voice responded with a hint of amusement at the irritation he had caused his old, annoying counterpart.

Piccolo's new student's all felt the hair stand up on the back of their necks as they stared down a being who they had come to see as evil incarnate, and who was now to be their instructor for the foreseeable future.

"Come on you five move it, we're wasting valuable training time!" Piccolo shouted before gathering his aura and shooting through the air back to his new, less damaged wasteland.

"Well I guess this is goodbye for now, thank you both for all your hard work." Tien said before bowing the 3 of the other 4 offered similar sentiments, Yajirobe's reply was less formal, "Yeah, yeah what he said."

After a quick goodbye to the others they were off, Yajirobe far in the rear, having only learned to float mere hours before.

* * *

"Finally it took you long enough to catch up." Piccolo said bluntly his arms crossed and an irritated scowl on his face, as four of the fighters landed behind him, he didn't even bother to turn around.

"We're here to train not to talk so let's just get started. Otherwise I'm going back to sleep." Tien said not realizing Yajirobe hadn't kept up with the group; he was too focused on Piccolo.

The son of the Demon King then turned around an amused smirk on his face as his eyes scanned his new pupils; the smirk became a frown as soon as it passed Krillin the leftmost member of the group.

"Where's the fat one?" Piccolo asked his voice with just a hint of irritation.

"Huh what do y-, wait where is Yajirobe?" Krillin asked as he looked back and forth for a rock the overweight Samurai could be hiding behind.

"He must have fallen behind since he just learned to fly yesterday." Chiaotzu responded reaching the most logical conclusion.

"Or he was too scared and flew off somewhere else." Yamcha responded, with the most likely one, the samurai was known to have a fear of any actual hard work or danger, and training with Piccolo would have plenty of both.

Before the conversation could go any further, Piccolo cut in again, "Why he isn't here is not the issue the issue is his being gone. Stay here I'll be back shortly." Piccolo ordered, the threat plain in his voice, as he shot up and through the sky at speeds the human fighters could only gawk at.

Before too long the aura could be seen coming back their direction, glowing brightly in the night sky.

As it approached a definitive sound of screaming could be heard echoing over the hills and valleys dotting the wasteland, the voice was unmistakably Yajirobe's

The reincarnated Demon king dropped his tardy student off rather roughly, with the others before assuming his previous location.

He gathered fighters just stared at him with a variety of expressions, Krillin and Yajirobe were pure fear, Yamcha and Chiaotzu were a high level of nervousness, while Tien was just on guard.

"Now that that issue has been solved, I was about to commend you on your acceptable response." Piccolo said his dark smirk causing Yajirobe to begin to think of an escape plan, even though his head was still ringing from his previous encounter with the ground.

"The old man did an adequate job on your training given the circumstances, unfortunately adequate isn't enough, not in this fight. The next few months will consist of only a few things, each one is going to push you harder than you thought was possible. You will start each day fighting each other, no holding back or I will be your partner the next day, followed by meditation. Then each of you will fight with me using the multiform technique, the 2 weakest will work as a team, meaning the fat one and the smallest." Piccolo said his voice so devoid of humor that no one complained at the insults. "After that we will meditate once more before all of you fighting me at once. This is the schedule and it will be kept are we understood."

When all present nodded their heads or gave some other form or acknowledgement, Piccolo suddenly split into 4 and rushed the group, catching everyone off guard. Tien barely got his guard up in time, Krillin was sent flying into a nearby hill, Yamcha was pile driven head first into the ground, Chiaotzu was blasted into the air and Yajirobe was being used as the 4th Piccolo's punching bag. Training at the demon school had officially begun.

**Chapter 6 is in the books, hope everyone enjoyed it. As always please review.**

**Reviews:**

**enlyasurgeon: Yeah I was really trying to make Nappa less of the mindless brute they kind of portrayed him to be in the show, I felt him and Raditz should've had much bigger roles, and to be honest I am kind of disappointed that they didn't, I mean who wouldn't want to see a bald super saiyan. **

**super mystic gohan: The Saiyan's are going to arrive in almost exactly a year, last chapter Vegeta said they had 8 months to get Arlia and Earth razed if they were going to have time to make it to the big mission they had scheduled. The last chapter of course took place 4 months after Goku was killed, so that's how the timeline is going to go.**

** I can tell you right now the human fighters are all going to be stronger than they were during the actual show, mainly because of they will be pushing themselves against a much stronger fighter over the last 6 months, it's going to be an interesting dynamic, especially between Tien and Piccolo.  
**

**Gohan's missions are going to be pivotal in shaping his personality, and by extent the rest of the story.**

**Kid Goku Forever: Thanks for the reviews, I hope you keep following the story.**


	7. Chapter 7: You're Hired

**Chapter 7: You're Hired.**

(7 months after Goku's death)

The 3 months it had taken Gohan and Raditz to reach Frieza planet 3, the lowest number planet still believed to be intact, passed by like a long, dreamless night's sleep.

Unfortunately that was in the past now, the moment he had awoken, fear immediately began to build up in the pit of Raditz's stomach. There was no such thing as a good meeting with Frieza for a Saiyan; they nearly always ended in torture of some sort.

This time though he didn't have Vegeta for Frieza to focus on, it was merely him and his earthling raised nephew, who seemingly only had two personas, scared helplessness and berserker rage. Either response was likely to worsen any sort of 'fun' Frieza would have planned for them.

"This visit is going to be great, the brat's probably going to get us both killed." Raditz mumbled to himself, as he exited his pod.

He immediately walked over and pulled the still sleeping child from his pod, "Wake up brat!" He shouted before giving the boy a few _light_ snacks to the face to make sure he was fully awake.

Gohan immediately began crying because he had never been awoken in such a violent manner before. "Where... Am I?" He managed to ask between whimpers after being shaken violently for crying for more than a few seconds.

"We're on this quadrant's capital planet; I'm presenting you to Frieza." Raditz said bluntly as he began walking towards the exit of the landing pad. A scowl stretched across his face to hide his own inner fear. If the kid knew to be afraid, things would get more annoying, and potentially deadly.

That was when Gohan remembered the last thing Vegeta said to him,

_"Listen boy, I don't want to kill your mother but I have to, Frieza orders us to wipe out a planet and that's what we have to do. Do you know why? We have to because Frieza is currently the most powerful being the universe, which means he's in charge. If you want to be the one to decide who lives and who dies, you only have one option, become as strong as possible, without strength anything you love can be taken from you at any moment."_

Gohan suddenly felt a mixture of emotions rush through him rage, grief, hopelessness; He needed to save his mommy; if she was even still alive.

When that thought shot through him, fear added itself to that mix; tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes as he forced himself to ask the question he didn't want to know the answer to. "Is...Is my mommy still alive?"

Raditz felt a shiver run up his spine, that was a dangerous question, if he told an uncensored version of the truth the boy would most likely kill him and attempt to escape in an attempt to save her, on the other hand if he lied and told him that his mother was dead it could make the boy display his other persona, a crying mess, which would simple get them both killed by Frieza.

He finally decided on a strategy, confuse the boy with numbers "It took us 4 months to go from your home world to planet 66 and it's been roughly 3 months since we left planet 66. Vegeta and Nappa are heading to Arlia which is in a similar direction but not exactly the same one and will arrive in 2 months, from there is just a 3 month trip to your planet. It would take you 7 months to reach your world and Vegeta will get there in 5, you're not saving your mom kid." Raditz said bluntly, hoping the kid would just accept things as they had to be.

Gohan thought about it, re-doing the simple math in his head over and over again. Raditz had now come to a complete stop as he waited for the boy's response, fear began to build that he had been too blunt. When finally the boy responded, a quiet whisper, "noooo." before beginning to sob.

"Damn it boy, your tears will solve nothing!" Raditz angrily shouted, catching Gohan off guard. His sobs quieted to sniffing for a moment, "Yes you will never see your old family again, that sucks I know, I only got too see my father 3 times my whole life before our home world was destroyed." Raditz said intending to bring up his own painful past in an attempt to do the damage he had unintentionally done.

Gohan looked up at the being he hated more than anyone in the universe, and actually felt a pang of sympathy for him.

Raditz grabbed both of the scouters and tossed them behind a nearby rock, he didn't need to worry about Vegeta or Frieza killing him if they overheard what he was about to tell the boy, "If you want to avenge you parent's deaths you have to help us… Go-han" Raditz was still uncomfortable with his nephew's very un-Saiyan name.

"I'm going to let you in on a secret, Frieza is the root cause of the pain we all feel, He's responsible for everyone we've cared about being taken away, directly or indirectly." Raditz's voice barely above a whisper, he now had Gohan's complete and utter attention.

"Everyone says Frieza was the one to blow up our home world planet Vegeta, which with all the planet's he's destroyed just in the time I've been a oart if the organization, I can't, not believe what they say. It's too much up his alley. He has taken my mother and father from me, Vegeta's parents the King and Queen, he stole Nappa's mate and son from him, and he is the reason I had to kill your father and Vegeta will kill your mother." The Saiyan warrior rationalized, he ignored the fact the boy's father still would've died for treason if the Saiyan royalty was still around.

Gohan stared at his uncle, replaying his last words in his head, comparing them to what Vegeta had told him earlier. It seemed to make sense, but he still wasn't sure why his parent's had to die. "But why, why did he do all these awful things? Why do you have to obey him? Why don't you stop him?"

Raditz had to give it to the kid out of all the weak, noble fools he had killed in his time, the kid, a half-Saiyan now doubt, was by far the most naive of them all.

"The answer to the first question is the answer to the others; He's the strongest being in the universe. We Saiyan's love to fight, especially against strong opponents, but we're not suicidal. He could kill any of us at any time without any effort. Hell the only reason he keeps us alive is because he finds us _entertaining" _He almost spite the last word out before continuing "especially Vegeta." He paused for a moment trying to decide just how much he was going to tell the boy.

Finally he continued "That doesn't mean we aren't trying, I was trying to recruit your father to help us in our mission of revenge. He needed to finish his mission first though so Frieza would accept him joining our group. He refused and so turned his back on his people, proving he had completely abandoned his honor." Raditz growled quietly at the thought

"So we brought you instead to help us, because we aren't strong enough by ourselves. We need your help to not only get revenge for our race, but to also put an end of us bothering with weak world's like your own. Like Vegeta said we're only interested in fighting strong warriors." Raditz hated to admit it, but they weren't strong enough, they would need all of them working together to get strong enough to take on the top missions, it would be the only way for one of them to achieve the legendary transformation and get revenge on Frieza for his atrocities against the Saiyan race.

Gohan just stared up his uncle, his head spinning, it sounded like a twisted version of the stories his daddy used to tell him about stopping the evil King Piccolo, the biggest villain to ever attack the Earth, to avenge the death of his friend. Was his father really so similar to these men, he fought the biggest threat to a single planet, but from what his uncle said they were fighting the biggest threat to the universe, and apparently they couldn't do it alone.

An inner struggle began to stir within Gohan, part of him had always wanted to be a hero like his father, but the way these men were doing it seemed wrong, his dad had told him he just kept fighting and training until he won, that you could never give up.

"Vegeta was right when he said we're your family now, we're the only ones left that would fight to avenge your death. We are all soldiers fighting against Frieza, even if we have to obey him for the time being. We're the only one's doing any preparing to resist him. So we need you to play along for now, you might hate us, that's fine, as long as you help us, and obey me for the time being." Raditz finished, adding the last bit in because it would be useful in the long run, and because he was tired of being low man on the totem pole.

Gohan was lost in thought as wrong as the way they were going about it felt. He couldn't help but think if what his uncle was saying was true, if they really were preparing to fight the monster who was the root cause of all the pain and suffering he and his family had been exposed to recently, how could he refuse to help them. He needed to be like his father and save those who couldn't save themselves, he needed to be the strongest like his daddy used to be, but instead of being the strongest on the planet, he needed to become the strongest in the universe, just like Vegeta had said.

A look of resolve crept across his face, as he looked his uncle right in the eye's "I'll help, I'll avenge my family."

Raditz just smiled, he had done it, and he had truly recruited the boy to the group. Now all he had to do was make sure the boy played the part of the good, obedient soldier, and they would hopefully get out of this with just the usual torture.

"Good" Raditz said as he sat the boy down allowing him to walk besides him, "I'll let you know what to expect from Frieza." He continued as he handed Gohan back his scouter, "He will most likely _test you_ though pain usually he keeps it to just beatings, though sometimes he does enjoy shooting piercing beams through your limbs" Purposely avoiding some of Frieza's more _creative_ tactics.

"Nothing that a few hours in a healing tank won't fix though, you just have to tough it out and show no fear, that'll only make it worse. We've all been through it and have only gotten stronger because of it." Raditz said, disappointed that the boy's resolve seemed to have completely faltered at the idea of pain.

Gohan was shaken slightly by the idea of having holes in his arms and legs; he did his best to not show it like Nappa had told him to. He couldn't completely hide it though.

They took a few more steps before the boy spoke up, "I don't know if I want to meet this Freezer guy, can't you guys just not tell him about me?" Gohan asked his fear continuing to build the more he thought about it.

Raditz was thankful the landing pad was deserted no doubt due to the fact everyone on the planet was either orbiting Frieza attempting to gain favor or hiding due to the fact they valued their own lives. Otherwise the boy's behavior would cause the Saiyan race to deal with more shame due to the child's un-Saiyan disposition.

"That's too bad, I don't want to either but I have to because I thought you might of some use as one of the last of our race instead of killing you, now calm yourself as long as you only speak when spoken to and don't give any answers that displeases him we should be mostly fine. 'or at least as one can be in the presence of Frieza. The last part Raditz kept in his head for the sake of calming the boy down, and it seemed to work, as Gohan tried to be strong and work through his fear.

They then resumed their walk towards the main building complex of the base; for the most part it looked like most other PTO bases, though this was one of the few that was actually surrounded a large inhabited city. This world was the main technological capital of this quadrant of the galaxy. It was so important that rumor had it that this was where Frieza decided to have the Ginyu Force make it their home base, just so the world was protected.

As they were walking through the outskirts of the city towards the base the boy kept oohing and awing at all of the talk buildings, impressive statues, mostly of Frieza, and other technological marvels.

For a county child who had never even seen a city before it was an extra impressive sight. All of his sadness and fear temporarily melted away as he got to just be a kid on his first visit to the city.

Raditz couldn't marvel at the sights, not that they really impressed him anyway he had destroyed too many similar cities to care about wealth; the only thing that impressed him was power, which Frieza has plenty of, the tyrant made sure to remind them of that fact nearly every time they saw him. It was that same power that had had Raditz terrified for the upcoming presentation.

At least the boy was no longer weeping like he had half expected him to be even after the boy had pledged to help, maybe the boy had some Saiyan pride in him after all. Though there would be plenty of time to shed tears afterwards.

Finally they arrived, Raditz immediately checked in with Zarbon's secretary. Since Zarbon for all intents and purposes acted as Frieza's secretary, he was responsible for scheduling all visits with the ruler of half the planet trade organization and therefore the galaxy.

Though since Frieza's right hand man had an even lower opinion of Saiyans than his master, he refused to directly associate with them unless absolutely necessary, leading him of have a secretary of his own, specifically for the Saiyans.

The small green amphibious alien laughed at Raditz for even requesting a meeting with Frieza, but told "I'll pass it on incase the boss is looking to do some exterminating."

Raditz was furious but bit his tongue, Zarbon's secretary had proven to be stronger than himself the last time they came to blows, and although he was much stronger now, didn't want to have Zarbon give him any extra punishment, before he could even meet with Frieza.

"Fine whatever." was all he could say as he decided to vent his frustrations the only way he could on a world where most of the beings around him were still stronger than himself; by heading to the mess hall, even the meager rations they were allowed would be better than facing Frieza on an empty stomach.

Gohan's childish trance, which had continued the entire time since he was out of the landing pads as he watch hundreds of soldiers of different species rush back and forth, ended abruptly when he smell the stench of the gruel that served as rations even at the best of the solder mess halls. The smell was less like the food his mom made for him and more like a well of raw sewage had burst into the room.

Gohan could barely keep from gagging from the noxious odors that assaulted his highly developed sense of smell. He was hoping they would just be passing through on their way to some other cool, less smelly place; his hopes were immediately dashed when they got in a line with an assortment of aliens.

"Can we leave?" He asked his voice nasally as both his hands clung to his nose.

Raditz for his part had nearly forgot the boy was still with him, he had been too busy dreaming of teaching the mouthy amphibian his place. "No we can't, I'm hungry, so we're eating." He responded his tone intended to cut off further discussion so he could go back to not focusing on the boy and instead on something to distract him from what might quite possibly his date with death itself sometime in the near future.

But Gohan wouldn't be ignored so easily, "I don't wanna eat here its stinky" He whined as the vein began to pop out on Raditz's temple. The boy's spoiled ways were beginning to rear their ugly head once more.

Raditz refused to tolerate such backtalk, especially in front of the other soldiers, they already saw him as a weakling and therefore a laughing stock, he would be damned if he was going to let them see him as subservient to a child as well.

In a flash he grabbed the boy by the throat and brought him up to his face, which was now locked in a snarl, "Did you just talk back to me!" Raditz nearly shouted, he didn't especially want to call more attention to himself than was necessary, "I said I was hungry so I'm going to eat, just for your insolence, I will be eating your ration too boy. Am I clear?" His voice dropping to more of a growl than anything at that point.

Gohan just stared wide eyed, he was slowly being robbed of air, he was so scared he nearly wet himself, he slowly nodded his head as much as he could, this was a complete reversal of how his Uncle had treated him just a short time before.

When he was set down once more, both his own hands rushed to his throat as he began to cough, and whimper, much to some of the planetary pirates' around them amusement.

Gohan sat their shaking as his anger began to build not just at his uncle for attacking him but at the others surrounding them as well. Adults were supposed to help you when you're in trouble, but instead these people just laughed at him. His began to approach his breaking limit, setting all of the solder's scouters off in the entire mess hall.

Most had stopped laughing and started to stare at the boy, analyzing if the boy might in fact be a threat to any of them. A few of the weaker ones back off as a precautionary measure, Vegeta's childhood tantrums were still infamous among the planet trade even to that day.

"Gohan! Calm down this instant." Raditz ordered, snapping the boy out of his rage fill trance, his eyes still burned with white hot fury though as he glared at his Uncle.

Raditz bent down and got his face close to the boy, close enough that only he could hear him, "You can try and get revenge on them for laughing now if you'd like, but just so you know, I'm not strong enough to keep any of them from killing you if you pick the wrong fight, if your anger is directed towards me, remember you gave me your word that you would obey me for the time being, and it was your back talk that caused me to grab you." Raditz's reminder actually calmed Gohan down some; he was now more simmering now than outright furious.

He still stayed silent all throughout the meal, even though he was starting to get hungry as he watched his mean uncle eat both his and his own portions of some sort of grey gruel.

The silence continued all the way until they were registered into a room in the barracks. As soon as the door closed Gohan decided to voice his displeasure "your mean." It was a fact he already knew because this was the monster who killed his dad, and stole him from his mom, but he felt the need to remind him.

Raditz response only added fuel to the boys slowly re-building anger, "What was your first clue brat" he chuckled before laying down on the Spartan cot provided in the room.

Gohan's anger began to overtake him again; he was going to teach his uncle that he couldn't just treat him like this, especially if he was going to help them.

That was when Raditz surprised him, "Calm down and eat up." Raditz said as he threw a few of the emergency ration crackers he had been carrying with him to Gohan. 'Just need to keep him calm enough to get through this meeting.' He thought to himself as he continued to manipulate the child in an attempt to strike a balance between his emotions.

Gohan looked down at the crackers in his hand, before he could say anything in response to the unexpected gift, his stomach answered for him with a loud growl.

"Just eat up, and try to get some rest, we don't know how long they'll keep us waiting." With that Raditz began to try to go to sleep.

Gohan had just begun to eat the meager amount of crackers when suddenly a voice rang through his left ear, "Will the monkey known as Raditz please report to Frieza's chamber. Oh and bring the monkey brat with you." The voice taunted on the verge of laughter.

Raditz's blood ran cold, his moment of reckoning had come, whether he lived or died during the next hour was now entirely in the hands of his unstable, half-breed nephew.

"Come on brat we have to hurry." Raditz said fear evident in his voice, Frieza usually made them wait much longer than this to see him, this wasn't a good sign, besides the longer Frieza waited for you the longer the torture lasted.

The fear Raditz was emanating only managed to ignite Gohan's fear worse than it was before. 'What sort of monster is this Frieza guy?'

Raditz weaved his way nearly across the entire complex before finally arriving at the tyrant's chambers.

Just outside the door Zarbon's amphibious assistant waited a foreboding smirk on his face, "Have fun in there you two, Lord Frieza's in a great mood today." The alien said before rapidly expanding his chest repeatedly in his species form of laughter.

Raditz could feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins; Frieza was bad enough when he was in a good mood. He tried to hide it better this time to avoid further alarming the boy, by growling at his amphibious tormentor as he pushed past him through the doors.

As they entered the dimly lit room, Gohan felt the hairs on the back of his neck, and along his tail, stand straight up. There was definitely a dark energy to the room; the evil had seemingly permeated it so deeply it felt as if all the good in the universe had suddenly vanished.

It took a combination of all of his will power, and his uncle's vice like grip on his arm to keep him from fleeing the room immediately.

Raditz felt a similar urge to flee but he knew it would do nothing except shame himself and likely get him killed since Frieza and his body guards were much, much faster than he could hope to outrun, not even prince Vegeta was fast enough usually to block their blows. So he decided he had to play it to the end and chanted "long live lord Frieza." Before dropping to a knee bowing as he forced Gohan to follow his lead.

"Ah so my monkey prince has sent his monkey joker to entertain me today, how kind." Frieza said without turning around his voice so calm and refined, that Gohan had a hard time believing he was the source of the evil energy, or that what was being said was actually an insult.

The alarm bells in Raditz's head were ringing too loud for him to even be angry at the insult. Frieza was testing him, trying to get a response, if he answered wrong the best case scenario he would have is a long torture session, if he escaped with his life

While his mind still reeling with the new implications the new threat to his life posed, he heard something that surprised him, his own voice perfectly calm responded "if that is what my lord wishes I would gladly try, though before we begin may I be allowed to complete my mission first." His voice much more humble than was normal for a Saiyan. 'Maybe all of those years of being beaten are finally paying off' Raditz thought as his body responded basically on autopilot.

Frieza's chair whipped around the being sitting in had a face full of shock and amusement. He was by far one of the scariest aliens Gohan had seen so far as he cringed slightly at the sight.

Frieza acted as if he hadn't even noticed the him yet "My a monkey pretending to have manners, this is too much Ahaha!" Frieza shouted before bursting into laughter. Both his body guards, a stout pink being with short horns and spikes sticking out and several places along his body and a feminine looking blue alien with green hair both broke into quiet chuckles of their own.

Raditz had slowly pulled himself out of his near trance like state and was slowly getting angry as the laughing continued. Finally when felt he could take it no more Frieza's laughter began to die down, "I suppose I can humor you my monkey, please continue." Frieza said his voice still so crisp it was starting to unnerve Gohan; there was obviously some insanity beneath the polite, elegant exterior, it shone through when he laughed.

Raditz gulped before continuing, "As you see Lord Frieza, recently I learned there was a chance my brother was alive and set out to find him, although he had never contacted us indicating success on his mission. I found him still on his world serving as the planet's protector and attempted to re-recruit him to his mission. He refused and I was force to kill him for his treachery."

Frieza face didn't betray anything about what was going through his head during the first part of the obviously well-rehearsed retelling of the story, inside he was furious that another Saiyan had survived without his knowing. But when Raditz said the other Saiyan had died by his own brother's hand a small smirk crossed his face. He had long wished his father would allow him to kill his own sibling, but to no avail. He was suddenly curious as to where the child had come from though.

"All done exactly as you should've, I have one question though, if you brother is dead who is the monkey cub sitting behind you? I was lead to believe that all the she-monkeys had died in the... _meteor_, was I mis-informed" Frieza said he couldn't help allow his smirk to turn into a small grin as he remembered the destruction he caused the Saiyan home world.

Raditz felt his blood run cold, it was bad enough when Frieza was glaring, but when he smiled, I usually meant something incredibly painful was on the way.

His tongue suddenly ran dry with the thought of tortures past, he quickly shook it off and forced himself to respond, "All of the women of my race have died my lord; the child is a half breed."

Frieza for his part seemed almost relieved; he had initially been worried that the insufferable King Vegeta had actually done something intelligent, such as made a secret colony. But no just a lost, disillusioned low-level going native.

The whole thing actually had a positive effect one monkey ended up killing another and wiping out an entire planet of other monkeys so he and the others couldn't repopulate their race. 'Stupid monkeys shooting themselves in the foot every time something almost goes their way.' Frieza thought as he stifled a laugh.

His euphoria was interrupted though when he remembered the Saiyan had never actually said anything about wiping the planet clean. A frown quickly reformed on his face, the dirty monkey might have just tried to pull a fast one on him.

His faithful servant Zarbon was thinking along similar lines and decided to investigate the situation further. "So how long did you take a pitiful weakling like yourself to wipe the weakling world clean?" A taunting sneer across his face, disdain thick in his voice, both expertly hiding the fact he was digging for information.

Raditz tried to stutter an answer but his voice had completely failed him "I… uhh...well…"

With each word Raditz uttered, Frieza's glare became colder and colder.

Raditz was finally able to force himself to speak complete thoughts instead of random words, "You see I thought it was more important to bring the child to you while I had him under control he is fairly powerful, more so than my weakling brother so I didn't want him damaging my ship while I wiped the planet out." When Frieza's glare didn't lighten any he quickly added "Vegeta and Nappa are going to finish the world off now."

"Dodoria what's the boy's power level?" the ruler of over half of the galaxy asked, the venom so thick in his voice it could be cut with a knife.

The giant pink being, pressed the button his scouter and started laughing, "It's just under 100 sire.

As soon as Dodoria finished speaking a single red beam shot out from Frieza's finger piercing straight through Raditz's stomach. blasting open a large wound, that would be potentially fatal if not treated soon.

Frieza rose from his chair and slowly floated over to the writhing, bleeding form of Raditz.

He would simply kill the monkey-child and then torture the planet's location from the useless being that now bled on his throne room floor. Then he would kill him in as painful a way as he could conceive, before going to this new monkey world to blow it up himself.

Gohan stared up at Frieza in horror. Frieza just glared back irritated, before turning his attention back to Raditz on the ground; wanting to make sure he could see the other monkey's death.

"Do you take me for a fool? Vegeta and Nappa both going to purge a planet that weak unless ordered ha! No they are going there to try and rebuild your filthy species, you should've just wiped the planet out instead of trying to pass this worthless child off as reason to keep the planet ar-" Frieza's rant was cut off by a weak, shaky voice

"Damn that would've been a good idea." Raditz paused as he coughed up blood. Before continuing, "Unfortunately as far as I know what I have said is the truth, they are going to wipe the planet clean, and the boy is much stronger than he appears, if he gets angry his power soars." Raditz choked out laying all his cards on the table as a last ditch effort to save his life.

Frieza was shocked, beings didn't interrupt him, especially when he had already shot a hole through them, normally they just begged for mercy. His gaze shifted from one of fury to mild interest, "I'll just see about that my monkey joker." His last words returning to the same tone he had had when they had first entered the room.

Frieza set his sights back on the boy who was shaking uncontrollably. "Go on then show me your power little monkey."

Gohan was paralyzed with fear.

Frieza waited just a second more before lashing out, _lightly_, with his tail, sending Gohan back into a wall.

"Are you angry yet, monkey, come on show me your power." Frieza goaded as his seemingly teleported across the room, back in front of Gohan who was just sitting back up from the from Gohan's perspective, powerful blow.

Frieza appearing in front of him caused him to try and scurry away on all fours, much to Frieza's amusement.

He didn't make it very far before Frieza grabbed him by his now unwrapped tail and threw him across the room again.

"I'm giving you a chance to live, just show me this strength your monkey unlce claims you possess." Frieza continued to taunt.

Gohan was struggling to rise, he was angry, but his fear was dampening out his rage, he was just a child he shouldn't have to be taking a beating from some sort of monster.

"Not going to play nice and show me your power, oh well, goodbye you dirty monkey mutt." Frieza said charging up a small death beam and firing it at the boy, the beam should be enough to kill even a child as weak as the one before him slowly, making it as painful as possible, nothing else would do for the vermin of the universe.

Gohan saw the red beam shooting his way, and his young life flashed before his eyes, unbeknownst to him, the need his body had to resist the call of death was able to pull his inner power from him. Subconsciously he body lunged upwards with all of his might. The beam scalding the very tip of his tail, causing him to yelp in pain.

The four scouters in the room sounding simultaneously, although Raditz was in no condition to even open his eye's enough to see the ready, he knew that the fact he had heard the pinging of the scouter registering the spike, Gohan had finally awoken his strength. Now he only had to hope it would be impressive enough to save their lives.

To say Frieza was shocked was an understatement, the boy whose power wasn't even 100 a moment ago, not only was able to dodge his attack, but the scouter said his strength spiked up near 3000.

I can't believe it the boy's power is at 2940, the fool was right." Zarbon responded, surprised that the boy was so powerful at such a young age, the only Saiyan he knew of that was stronger that young was Prince Vegeta himself, who had a power level just shy of 5000 when he arrived in Frieza's 'care'.

Frieza mouth shifted to a small smirk, 3000 was a power level high enough that the boy could serve as adequate entertainment for when he finally had to put his favorite monkey prince down.

"The boy shall live." Frieza declared as he floated lazily back towards his chair. His mood going from anger to near euphoria once more.

Gohan for his part was sucking on the tip of his tail trying to make the burning feeling stop, tears dripping from his eyes due to the pain.

'Lord Frieza, what do you want us to do with the monkeys besides letting the boy live?" Zarbon asked as his master floated past him.

"Simple, Dodoria take the manned monkey to a rejuvenation chamber, when he is healed, torture the location of the boy's planet from him and then gather your team. Make sure my dear prince isn't up to any monkey business." Frieza paused a moment to admire his own sense of humor before continuing.

"Zarbon in the meantime, please give the boy a proper welcome to the planet trade." Frieza's voice was almost singing it was filled with such happiness and joy, but beneath it Gohan could still hear the insanity that told him that the welcome was going to be a painful experience.

He was proven right just as the thoughts crossed his mind, a large blue fist imbedded itself in his stomach, forcing all the air from his lungs.

Zarbon the proceeded to play a game of tennis with Gohan's still accelerating body as he was smacked in a variety of random directions over and over again. The sound of his grunts and yells of pain, were completely drowned out though by Frieza's sadistic laughter.

The game continued until the gracious arms of blackness were about to swallow Gohan whole.

Zarbon wasn't going to be merciful enough to let his fun end there, after pausing a moment let the boy wake back up some. He then proceeded to fire a series of small compact energy blasts charring numerous small spots all over Gohan's body.

Gohan was screaming in agony, the 'introduction wasn't over yet though, as Zarbon proceeded to slowly, methodically break every one of the bones in the boy's tail.

When he was done Gohan just lay there whimpering in such pain he couldn't even try and move any more.

He hated them all, he now knew that his uncle was right Frieza and his Lieutenants were pure evil, but his hate didn't just extend to them, he was also furious with his uncle for making him go through this.

Frieza quickly got bored with the boys whimpering, "That'll do Zarbon, take the boy to a healing chamber." Frieza said before turning his chair back the other way once more.

Zarbon immediately picked the boy up by his tail once more, Gohan was in too much pain to even scream, as he was carried all the way back to the hospital wing, by his shattered tail, the broken remains of his scouter falling unceremoniously to the ground, after miraculously staying on his face through the entire beating.

* * *

When Raditz was pulled from the healing chamber by the powerful arm of Dodoria, his eyes were still adjusting the bright lights around him; the pain in his stomach told him he had been pulled very early in the healing process.

He saw Gohan form floating in a healing chamber by the door as they exited. Not a single word was spoken, but by the smile on Dodoira's face he knew he would not enjoy what awaited them at their destination.

He was proven right the next few hours were some of the worst of his miserable life, as Dodoria continued to torture him for the information he had tried to give him within a few minutes of entering the chamber.

The day would end with Raditz's body completely broken, being prepared to take another long dip in the healing tank.

Dodoria and his men left the atmosphere speeding towards Gohan's home, on the newest, fastest ships in the entire PTO, before the doctors could even manage to get Raditz's mangled body submerged in the powerful healing solution.

* * *

(On Earth 10 months after Goku's death)

Krillin stood behind a large rock suppressing his power as low as he could while he tried to catch his breath for even just a moment. 'How do I always get in these situations?' Krillin thought to himself his mind flashing back through the day's events.

(flashback)

Piccolo had decided today was the day to remind everyone just what it was like to fight someone clearly superior to themselves.

"You've all become complacent with your training." Piccolo said his voice ripe with irritation

"Just because some of you are able to put up a decent fight against me when I'm split in four doesn't mean you're anywhere near ready to fight the Saiyans." The head of the demon school shouted at the warriors around him.

"So I think it's time I remind you all what it's like to fight an opponent far out of your league." The grin on Piccolo's face caused Krillin's heart to begin pounding in his ears; a smiling Piccolo was usually a forecast for pain and suffering for them all.

"Each of you will fight me one on one, as a reminder of how far behind you all really are. Who wants to go first?" He finished his speech and looked through the group waiting for a volunteer.

Since Tien had kept his clear advantage over Krillin and Yamcha, he inwardly sighed, 'might as well go first'

"You ready for this Piccolo, I'm not going to hold back." The three eyed martial artist goaded as he stared his enemy, turned temporary teacher, down, projecting a confidence he didn't really feel.

Tien knew he was in the trouble before the fight even began, He could defeat one of Piccolo's clones with ease, but now he'd be fighting a being at least four times stronger than that.

"I would hope not, this fight would be even more boring if you did." Piccolo responded, feigning contempt. In truth he was ready to show the closest thing to a rival there was among his students, the true extent of his might.

In a flash they were gone from the previous locations, both appeared towards the middle, though closer to Tien's starting spot than Piccolo's, one arm extended apiece.

As soon as their fists met, a massive shock wave shook the valley; Tien immediately felt his arm go numb as the power from Piccolo's blow worked its way up his arm shocking his nerve endings. This was not the way the triclops wanted to start the fight.

Piccolo smirked, and while Tien was coming to grips with being down an arm only seconds into the fight, the son of the demon king unleashed a powerful right hook into his opponent's chest, sending the strongest of the human martial artists flying.

What followed next made the first blow seem like a flea's bite, as Piccolo vanished from his spot and appeared behind Tien, arms already back and ready to deliver a vicious ax-handle.

Tien didn't even have time to realize that Piccolo was behind him, everything was happening so fast.

When the blow hit, right between Tien's shoulder blades, his entire torso bent painfully inwards as he was launched back towards the ground.

The others could only watch in horror as their friend, and de facto leader crashed into the ground with astonishing speed.

"Tien NO!" Chiaotzu yelled, having to fight off the urge to rush to his best friend's aid. He had done so once before, and they had both suffered the consequences.

"Come on now, I know you're not done yet." Piccolo's gruff voice rang out after a moment of waiting for his 'student' to appear, arms crossed, curious as to what his adversary was planning.

His unasked question was answered just a moment later as a massive triangular blast shot up from the rubble.

Piccolo didn't have time to adequately dodge, he had let his guard slip too much in his over confidence, so he simply crossed his arms and braced for impact.

The resulting explosion was massive, it shook the ground for miles around, but when the smoke cleared, Piccolo was revealed mostly unharmed, just some smoke billowing off his ruined tunic.

"All that waiting for that? I'll at least give you-" Piccolo started to taunt before being interrupted by "Dodon Ray!" a single beam of light shot up from a now standing, but thoroughly thrashed, Tien.

Piccolo was irritated at being interrupted during his well-prepared finishing speech, and simply backhanded the blast aside.

In the twilight of the early morning though, the flash of light the beam has caused, allowed Tien to slip unnoticed from the crater.

By the time it registered with Piccolo that Tien was gone, Tien already had a chop swinging at the back of his neck.

Just as his attack should have made contact through Piccolo's body faded away, nothing more than an after-image.

Before Tien could even fully turn his head to search the reincarnated demon king out, Piccolo was back in the same spot he had just vanished from, only this time facing him, a fist already imbedding itself in Tien's gut.

A mixture of blood and saliva spewed from the warriors mouth, along with all of the air in his lungs. Piccolo wasn't done yet though, he followed up the first attack with a powerful chop to the side of the neck, knocking the seasoned martial artist hurtling face first into the side of a mountain.

If Tien wasn't even going to allow him his banter, then he'd shut up and let his fists do the talking for him. 'At least he had a couple tricks up his sleeve, we'll have to refine those over the next couple months, there still not nearly good enough.' Piccolo thought to himself as he watched Tien's limp form dropping to the ground from the small crater it had made in mountainside, only to be slowed last minute by the short floating man's telekinetic abilities.

Yamcha or Krillin would be next, and since Piccolo was now well warmed up, he immediately went on the offensive, instead of giving them a chance to choose.

Yamcha was able to block only a few of the immensely powerful attacks before his guard was completely broken down, sending a small blast off the ground, he launched himself into the air to get some breathing room. Both of his arms and one of his legs already throbbing with pain.

When Piccolo launched out of the smoke still tracking his victim, just an instant later, Yamcha made the mistake of trying his wolf fang fist attack to turn the tide, not only was every one of his jabs easily blocked, but he ended up completely exposed for Piccolo's brutal counter-attack. When the son of the demon king moved slightly to one side, gripping Yamcha's latest extending arm, in a vice like arm lock, Yamcha could only stare in fear as his defeat was sealed.

His nose was broken on Piccolo's first strike; the next was a brutal knee to the stomach, resulting in a large amount of blood to spray from the former bandit's mouth. His day was ended though when a vicious axe handle collided with the back of his head, his limp form hitting the Earth well above terminal velocity.

Piccolo the turned his sights to the bald monk who had proven himself a worthy adversary several times since they had first fought in the 23rd world martial arts tournament. Piccolo suddenly vanishing from view.

Krillin sensed him coming just in the knick of time, his hands shooting to his face, "solar flare!" The bald monk shouted as a luminous flash filled the sky, temporarily blinding all but its source.

Krillin then let loose a massive volley of Ki blasts at his stunned teacher, before making a hasty retreat, dropping his Ki level near zero and hiding behind the rock, he had been behind since.

(End of flashback)

'Not good, I put almost everything I had just in that one attack, but It doesn't even feel like I phased him.' Krillin thought trying to contain his panic, fighting Piccolo had always been difficult, even when he was split into 4, but this was insane, even when they all attacked him together they usually couldn't do more than force a draw.

Suddenly Krillin heard something that made his blood run cold, on the rock right behind him he heard the clack of feet touching down.

He looked up to see a large ball of Ki already formed and pointed directly at his face, in short he was screwed.

Piccolo allowed a dark grin to cross his face before unleashing the blast; it was just strong enough to break through his students defenses without actually vaporizing him.

Krillin limp, scorched form now lay at the bottom of a large crater, half buried beneath debris.

'Hmp, that'll be entertaining when he tries to get up.' Piccolo thought to himself before turning to the last two, his smirk becoming a full grown grin once more, and launched himself at them.

Chiaotzu was his first target; he appeared in front of the small pale man, already swinging a devastating round house kick to his victims gut.

Chiaotzu didn't even have time to flinch before the full force of the kick had already been absorbed by his abdomen, he rocketed backwards, the air completely forced from his lungs, on a path straight for the nearest of the hills still standing.

Before he could reach it though, a more painful obstacle got in the way as Piccolo, using every bit of his mind bending speed was able to get behind the man-turned-speeding-bullet and defected him from his current trajectory with a powerful downwards chop. sending his fourth student into yet another small crater of his own.

Now only his most reluctant student was left standing. Yajirobe whose lack of hand to hand combat ability were partially covered due to his natural swordsmanship.

Piccolo landed in front of the now shaking Yajirobe, his arms crossed in contempt.

"Come on now, I'll give you one free shot." Piccolo taunted wanting to see if Yajirobe could come up with any strategy at all, that would prove him to be anything except extra durable cannon fodder when the time came.

The borderline obese Samurai stared, in horror at his supposed teacher, definitely not wanting to end up in a crater like the others. Finally he got an idea, one that just might be crazy enough to work.

Just as Piccolo took a step forward intending to force Yajirobe's hand, and fell right into the swordsman's trap.

Yajirobe split into 4, causing Piccolo to hesitant for just a moment, 3 of the 4 Yajirobes let loose a barrage of small Ki blast, doing little more than annoying the most powerful being the Earth had ever seen.

Piccolo phased out and easily took out the three weak Yajirobes who were harassing him, taking his eyes off of the main one for just a second.

That was when he struck; the Samurai had drawn his sword and crossed the few meters between them as soon as Piccolo turned his back.

Piccolo wiped around expecting to block a simple punch with his forearm, instead Yajirobe's sword cut clean through it.

Piccolo let out a yell of pain, his leg lashing out violently, sending the weakened original Samurai flying into a nearby rock.

Piccolo panted in pain, he had been careless and forgot to see which Yajirobe actually had his sword. 'That's exactly the kind of underhanded fighting style the humans would need to use if I am not enough to beat the Saiyans on my own' A small amount of pride rising up at his most worthless student doing something impressive '… I'm still going to beat the worthless lump of lard to a bloody pulp for cutting my arm off.' Piccolo thought, as he prepared to give his weakest student the beating of his life.

* * *

Piccolo was finishing his daytime training with some meditation, all of his students were in dreamless, trauma, induced slumbers; as they should be at the end of a day's training. He found though although he should be focusing on controlling his Ki he couldn't help but reflect over the changes his students had caused his way of life last 4 months.

His old life of isolation had gone by the wayside as he was now forced into close and nearly constant contact with most of the beings he had spent the better part of his life planning the very personal demises of.

At first it was an awkward situation for him, all of his students had not only known each other for over a decade and so could easily converse with one another, but they also shared a mutual hatred towards him.

When they weren't training, they treated him with a hostility they didn't even bother to hide, they knew, rightly so that he was nearly as big of a threat as the beings they were preparing for, and the alliance was only a temporary necessity.

Eventually though they all began to become more accustom to his presence and began to reach out to him occasionally. Only complicating his life more, hatred was something he knew, and expected, but attempts at kindness were a completely foreign concept for him, more than anything their foolishness attempts would just irritate him.

The three eyed man was the first to truly put an effort to put aside his previous aversion to him. Even when Piccolo was divided into fourths he was the only fighter to give him a real challenge, splitting the early fights nearly evenly, which gradually began to build their rivalry over the first few weeks.

Eventually he had to siphon more and more strength from his other clones to keep up with the former crane student, which gave the weaker students the impression that they were advancing much faster than the others, it was a catch 22 he was glad to finally be able to rectify this morning, with his impromptu beating of them all.

But the budding rivalry also, caused a strange change to their relationship, he enjoyed the banter they would have during and between their fights. It was something he actually looked forward to, besides of course world domination.

This began to put him in an awkward situation he couldn't afford to form friendships; he had to kill everyone that could stop him from conquering the Earth as soon as the Saiyans were eradicated, the fighters he was training would be among the first that would have to go.

Though recently a new idea began to make its annoying self-known, apparently a small part of him actually wanted to consider offering some of his previous enemies a chance of salvation, as his henchmen.

No matter how often he tried to quench such thoughts they had only increased in frequency over the last couple of weeks, no matter how many times he told himself they would only serve as potential threats, through the knowledge of the damned evil containment field.

Finally he decided he would get no worthwhile meditation done that evening, and split into two, to start the night portion of his training, an outward expression of the war that was brewing inside his head a battle against himself.

* * *

(Planet Arlia 10 months after Goku's death)

Nappa and Vegeta looked over the barren landscape with casual disinterest, normally on such a weak planet they would try and devise a game to make it more entertaining, unfortunately, time was not a luxury they had in this situation.

"This place stinks, why couldn't Frieza just let us blow the planet up from orbit." Nappa grumbled, irritated by the mixture of foul smells assaulting his sensitive sense.

"Frieza's message said something about wanting it to be more, personal, for the ruler of this world." Vegeta responded without any enthusiasm as he kicked over a ruined wall.

Nappa threw a couple of small Ki blasts at several small ruined buildings, let out some frustration that had been building up under Frieza's yoke.

"Come on Nappa stop playing around let's just burn this mud ball quick and move on." Vegeta ordered as he started to float in the direction his scouter indicated was the nearest and seemingly only major groupings of powerlevels.

Nappa though stayed in place, he thought his scouter had detected low but close power levels and he'd hate to have to miss any of the worthless beings in the planet. Frieza's punishments were exceedingly harsh if survivors were discovered.

"I think there might someone around here Vegeta." The lumbering giant responded his eyes slowly scanning the horizon for any sign of movement.

Vegeta was about to respond when, the sand right below him began to shift.

The Saiyan prince just watched with amusement as a group of what appeared to be overgrown beetles riding giant worms shot up from the sand.

The riders quickly fired a series of red Ki blasts at both of them intending to stun their prey for an easy capture.

The attackers ended up being the ones stunned when after both clouds of smoke blew away both the aliens stood completely unscathed.

"Hey Vegeta did you feel that?" Nappa asked an unnerving grin flashing across his face.

Vegeta also had an amused smirk on his face, "Yeah I think a couple of gnats just tried to bite us."

"Well that's what I thought; I guess we better zap 'em." Nappa said, as his eyes refocused on the suddenly very vulnerable feeling creatures in front of them.

Before any of the natives could react Nappa extended his index and middle fingers before raising his whole arm.

An area the size of a small city flashed brightly as a massive amount of energy vaporized everything in its path.

"That's one way to take care of an infestation" Vegeta sneered as they watched the rapidly expanding mushroom cloud.

Nappa was still laughing he loved having opportunities to use his favorite technique.

After a few more seconds of chuckling at the still growing shockwave Nappa suddenly turned and asked, "Hey Vegeta, what's the average power level on this rock anyway?"

"Weak, the report said its only 75." Vegeta responded disinterestedly.

"75! Damn so those bugs I squashed were the elites then, if I had known that I would've play around some more, though with power levels under 300 they wouldn't have lasted long anyway." Nappa responded disappointed at his own carelessness.

"No Nappa you did well, we have to hurry on this purge anyway." Vegeta replied before beginning to fly towards what appeared to be a castle in the distance

Nappa quickly caught up since Vegeta wasn't in a hurry, "I know but it still would've made it less boring." The giant pouted like a toddler who was just punished for not wrapping his tail around his waist

"Give the castle a scan with your scouter, there's a power level around 1000 in the castle as long as it's not the king I'll let you play with it while I extend the Frieza's counter offer to the king." Vegeta said feeling much less excitement at the prospect than his voice let on.

"Thanks Vegeta." A huge grin returning to his face as he began to daydream how he'd use his little bit if fun in an otherwise boring mission.

'Sometimes I think that boy might be more mature than Nappa.' Vegeta thought with disgust as he ignored his 'body guard' for the rest of the short flight.

The structure they stopped before appeared to be the only intact building on the planet, if what they had seen so far was any indication.

"We should knock don't you think Nappa." Vegeta said actual humor in his voice, his scouter picking up many scurrying beings, likely guards moving into defensive positions around the castle gates.

"Why not I guess that's the polite thing to do." The giant said before walking up the wood/iron combination door and promptly punching it right off the frame.

"Knock, knock! Anyone home." Nappa hollered as a flurry of arrows and spears shot out from the darkness at him, all of them breaking against his Ki strengthened skin, and armour.

"That wasn't very nice; you should teach them some manners Nappa." Vegeta sneered his servant proceed to unleash a massive volley of blasts incinerating the entire entrance hall of the castle.

The two Saiyans then walked unmolested through the rest if the castle, before finally coming out before a large throne room filled with the surviving soldiers and a bug wearing a crown standing defiantly before a throne.

"There they are men, kill the invaders." The king shouted as his servants rushed at the duo.

Vegeta calmly threw a small Ki blast into the stampede of guards vaporizing the lot of them in one brilliant flash.

"Alright Nappa I'll play with the king while you find that one high power level." Vegeta said as he shot a death glare towards the cowering king hiding behind his throne, shouting about something called a yeti.

Vegeta began a slow march towards the king, his glare never wavering. Before he made it too far, the mystery of what the king was shouting about and the anomalously high power level were both solved, as the ground beneath him slid open revealing an even larger bug.

Vegeta's scouter immediately began beeping indicating the creature was the high power level he had detected earlier, '980, hn the creature would barely give Raditz a work out."

"Nappa I found the giant bug you're looking for." Vegeta shouted to Nappa who had just began to fly away to begin his search.

The giant continued along his path for just another instant before suddenly accelerating rapidly upwards, his aura glowing brightly.

He then performed an agile aerial twist just as the monstrosity took its first step out of its cage.

The king's confidence had apparently completely returned as he began to shout orders for the giant being to eat them, a thought that was amusing to the prince.

Nappa continued to accelerate, now towards the beast, aiming himself directly at the being's head.

Just as the creature let loose a massive blast from its mouth, Nappa suddenly veered off course flying rapid around the monster's legs. The creature held its blast though, as it chased its meal, not realizing it was cutting through the artificial ground that supported it. Before it could even cut a full circle around itself the floor buckled causing the beast to fall back into its lair.

Nappa completed his circle, before diving in after his newest plaything. The roars of the yeti shook the ground as a vicious fight took place below.

Vegeta chuckled to himself for as stupid as Nappa acted most of the time he was actually a smart fighter, he just had a tendency to play around with his opponents too much.

Vegeta had stopped walking a few feet away from the cowering king, suddenly all was silent below, the silence had just begun to get eerie, when Nappa's green coated form floated of the hole a disappointed look on his face.

"For how big it was it really wasn't very durable, damn weakling." The giant muttered to himself as he set down, so just this king left here right" Nappa asked as he stared at the shocked being before him.

"Please I'll give yo-" the King started to sputter, before Vegeta silenced him, "Silence, have some honor, no amount if begging will save you today. You should have realized that you don't turn Frieza down and live to talk about it long." Vegeta said dryly he found very little enjoyment in being Frieza's enforcer, but for the time being he had to play his part.

He couldn't wait for the day he was in his rightful place as the ruler of the galaxy instead of the hired muscle.

The Prince then quickly charged a small beam and fired it at the king, immediately vaporizing him, and a good portion of the castle. He had had enough of this world; they were behind schedule as it was.

"Let's go Nappa, no need to waste any more time here." Vegeta shot through the sky a scowl on his face, lost in his own thoughts.

Nappa followed right next to him, though with a little more effort than the first time,the slime gradually being blown off of him.

For the first 30 seconds or so of the flight he was silently thinking on his own, finally he spoke up. "We should've had the kid and Raditz take care of this world." The giant commented irritated that his time was wasted on such a weak un-entertaining world.

That got Vegeta's attention, he hadn't even remembered to check in and see if they had survived the encounter with Frieza.

As they set down next to their pods, Vegeta tried to send a transmission to the duo but the voice of Qui responded on what was supposed to be the Saiyan team signal.

"My Vegeta it is good to hear from you again, trying to get ahold of your little monkey friends are you?" Vegeta's rival taunted.

Vegeta instantly feared the worst, there had to be a reason Frieza had Qui intercepting his signal.

"Don't worry Frieza left you little servants alive, but seeing how they are currently preoccupied. Frieza asked me to let you know he's not pleased with your troop of monkey's failures Vegeta not at all." he responded as if he had read Vegeta's thoughts.

"He knows about the long haired fool and his weakling brother's incompetence, since the planet is so late he's decided to add an additional 10 points to your required quota this year, to make up for the lost revenue." The purple aliens, obnoxious voice continued.

Vegeta could picture the infuriating grin on Qui's face it caused him to shake with rage, the only way they could possible make up 10 whole points would be another big time mission, but Frieza never gave the Saiyan's those.

He was going to kill Raditz if he took a beating for the third class's incompetence. They had to completely redo the current strategy; the kid's hands would have to get much dirtier earlier and more often, to even have hope of succeeding. With Arlia out of the way they would need 23 points, a full year's quota, in just 2 months

"Fine… I'll do the extra planets; let me speak to my men, so I can make the arrangements." Vegeta forced himself to sound calm, even though it was easy to tell by all other means that he wasn't.

"Nope." Qui replied before breaking down in laughter as Vegeta let out an enraged snarl.

"You patch me thro-" Vegeta started to shout, but a new icy voice spoke up on the line. "My Vegeta, does something have my dear monkey prince riled up today?' Frieza's mocking voice was not what Vegeta was expecting at all.

"Lord Frieza?" He asked, including the Frost demon's title as a subconscious response from years of beatings, more so that to show respect to the unexpected eavesdropper.

Frieza waited a second longer to see if Vegeta offered anything else before beginning, "Yes it is me my monkey prince; I must have surprised you since you rarely use my full title." The humor was evident in his voice.

"Now I just wanted to tell you personally how disappointed I am in your troop's failure. Part of the punishment I am enforcing is commandeering your other two monkey servants for the time being, since apparently you are having a hard time commanding _so many_ underlings. Fear not I will keep them very busy seeing how I have some _special_ missions I would like them to take care of to help make up for your failure. Do be sure to get your quota in on time, I would hate to have to punish you further." Before Vegeta could respond the line was cut.

The Prince of the Saiyans was left seething mad, his aura swirling brightly around himself, 23 points was an impossible goal with all four of them working together, but with just him and Nappa working… he didn't even want to consider the possibilities.

"Nappa we're leaving now!" He shouted at the equally enraged giant next to him, before loading into his pod.

Nappa hesitated a moment, they still had to purge the planet, but he decided it would be best to not test Vegeta right now, and followed suite.

A few seconds later they were already far above the planet, Vegeta stopped their ships in orbit though, gripped a tentative atmosphere around himself and got out of his pod

He had a lot of pent up frustrations, and he was going to take them out on the pitiful excuse of a planet.

Cupping his arms at his side, "GALIK GUN!" He shouted as he fired a truly massive blast of energy at the planet.

By the time he had gotten back in his ship, the world was already being torn apart by the force of the blast.

'Now I have to wipe the brat's mud ball clean in record time, and try and hit up some higher class planets on the way to Lostea, I will have my revenge for this I swear it.' These were his last thoughts he had before drifting into the dreamless slumber.

* * *

**And that's a wrap, alot of ground was covered that chapter. Originally I had it set up as two or three smaller chapters, but I'm already getting revved up for the battle for Earth and Gohan's first purge so I figured I would just knock all three sections out in one go. It had the added bonus of being my first chapter to crack the 10,000 word plateau, excluding my A/N it was nearly 12,000.**

**I have good news and bad news for everyone, I'll start with the good news I recently got my second story posted (Don't worry it's not going to be a time drain it is just a one shot) It's called Dragon Ball Zombie (real creative name I know lol) if your interested, it's a crossover between Dragon ball z and Highschool of the dead, also it is only a one shot.**

**Unfortunately I won't be gaining any additional writing time for Culture Shock as I'll explain in next.**

**Now for the bad news, due to a combination of factors, I will likely be delayed in posting the next chapter by at least a week, (Right when things are about to really get interesting, I know, I'm bummed about it too.) These factors include, but are not limited to:**

**I'm beginning to hit the real meat of the semester in school so the homework is ramping up. two big projects and a paper, in addition to my usual homework.**

**I recently got a new job and will be starting it right after this chapter is posted, less hours more money kind of situation situation, so training is going to sap some of my time, next week.**

**And most importantly I have finally reached the end of the rough draft I made during Christmas break. So I'll be starting from scratch for the next few chapters until I can get a good stock pile built back up in spring break. Plus I'm going to really want these next couple of chapters to be perfect, which means extra editing.**

**I don't anticipate the delay being a major one in any way, I start to get antsy if I can't get a new chapter up every couple of weeks, because I'm going down the story just like everyone else, I'm just a little ahead on it than everyone else, lol.**

**Well thank in ahead of time for your patience and I hope everyone who's made It this far sticks with the story.**

**Now for the reviews:**

**Super Mystic Gohan: It's good to hear your still enjoying it. I'm glad you could see the work I've put into trying to capture the dynamic between everyone; that was the part I was worried that I would struggle with the most.**

** I think this battle is going to be by far one of my favorite sections to write, so I hope it lives up to everyone, (including my own) expectations.**

**Next time on Culture Shock, the Saiyan's arrive! How will the Z fighters overcome these seemingly unstoppable foes? What sort of diabolical plans does Frieza have for Gohan and Raditz? Will Gohan actually take part in a purge? The answers to all of these questions and more will be answered in the next chapter of Culture Shock! **

**Simgr101- Thanks for the review, glad you liked the story so far. Yeah that always bugged me about Nappa in the show too; Toriyama seemed to just want to make him into a big disposable brute, That had a good start of a personality and then they decided to just toss him aside, a real disappointment because there was a lot of potential there. **

**Piccolo's going to have an interesting journey throughout the story for sure. He's definitely one of the more enjoyable to write. **

**As for your last concern I'm afraid I might spoil something if I touch on that subject so I'll have to take a rain check on answering it.**

**Enlyasurgeon- Thanks for another review. Chi Chi and Piccolo are going have interesting paths throughout the story, Sorry I'm having to be vague on this regard lol.**

**Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed, hope you all keep up the good work, as always if you think there are any issues with the story don't hesitate to let me know.**


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